Cassola writes to Standards Czar over Ira Losco’s Project Green social media promotions

Independent candidate Arnold Cassola has requested a standards investigation into Environment Minister Miriam Dalli and Project Green CEO Steve Ellul after they contracted singer Ira Losco to promote the agency’s work.

Cassola accused the duo of using taxpayer’s money to further their political image and of using the faces of Losco’s children to do this, which he said is illegal.

In his letter to Standards Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi, Cassola asked for him to investigate the “dirty behaviour” of Dalli and Steve Ellul.

Cassola described Ellul has an MEP elections candidate – a nod to a well-known rumour doing the rounds that Ellul is set to be one of the Labour Party’s keynote candidates in next year’s European elections.

In the meantime however he is the CEO of Project Green – the government’s new agency tasked with leading environmental projects in localities across the country.

Cassola said that Dalli and Ellul had “contracted singer Ira Losco to write on Facebook as if she and her family are very happy with Dalli and Ellul’s Project Green.”

He said that the act is grace on three counts: the first is on the basis of “false publicity, because Ira Losco is doing political publicity because she is paid by politicians”; the second because Dalli and Ellul are “using taxpayer’s money to advertise their political interests”; and third because Dalli and Ellul are “using the faces of Ira Losco’s children to do their political advertising, which is against the law.”

Cassola was basing his report on a story carried by The Shift News, which reported that Losco was being paid by Project Green in order to promote its work.

The media house said that Losco’s social media posts did not indicate that they are sponsored as is normally required by advertising standards. The singer herself admitted to the newsroom that she had been contracted by Project Green to share these posts.