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Rosianne Cutajar’s Yorgen Fenech Payment Is Missing From Official Tax Returns, With MP Pocketing €207,000 Over Three Years

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Rosianne Cutajar, the MP who recently resigned from Cabinet over links to murder suspect Yorgen Fenech, pocketed close to €207,000 in taxpayers’ money over the last three years. Still, her alleged €50,000 fee from brokering Fenech’s purchase of a Mdina home is missing from her official tax returns. 

Lovin Malta has learned that Cutajar was already earning a handsome salary in 2018 and 2019, before she even became a Cabinet member in January 2020. 

In 2018, Cutajar earned a total of 51,750, generating income from the Qormi local council (7,726), the Office of the Prime Minister (29,139), and from her role as an MP (14,889).

The next year, Cutajar made even more. In 2019, the same year she allegedly pocketed the fee from Fenech, Cutajar earned over 72,650 from official coffers. She earned 42,686 for her Cabinet role and around 29,960 for her role as an MP.

In 2020, when she became the Parliamentary Secretary for Reforms, Cutajar pocketed over 82,200, earning salaries from her Cabinet role (43,777), her MP role (30,320), and an unexplained fee from ITS (8,190).

Rosianne Cutajar did not respond to a request for comment.

Cutajar was forced to resign from Cabinet following revelations that she pocketed €46,500 for her role in a Mdina property deal involving Fenech, who stands accused of masterminding the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. A further €9,000 was handed to her directly from Fenech.

At the time, Fenech had not yet been charged in connection to the assassination but had already been outed as the owner of 17 Black, the Dubai-based company linked to alleged government corruption.

Notably, the fee is absent from her official tax returns.

The deal relates to Fenech’s attempts to purchase a Mdina home for €3.1 million in May 2019. When Fenech was arrested in November 2019 for the assassination, the deal fell through. However, the pair had already been paid for their role in the deal.

One month after pocketing the fees, Cutajar was within the halls of the CoE fighting tooth and nail to ensure the government’s amendments and vociferous complaints against the damning report are heard. PN MP David Thake has suggested that the fee was related to Cutajar’s backing within the PACE.

The report noted that Yorgen Fenech, as the Electrogas director, owned the Dubai company 17 Black, which was found to have received large sums of money from an Azeri national.

The government’s amendments included calls for a public inquiry into the case; requests for far-reaching constitutional changes; and complaints that the CoE report was too far-ranging in scope. They were backed by Cutajar and the other sitting PACE members, were shot down. The report passed with 72 votes in favour, 18 against, and three abstentions.

Malta’s government, and its representatives in the PACE, found support from Azerbaijan, the country with a stake in Fenech’s Electrogas project that has long been linked with alleged corruption in Malta.

A Standards Commissioner investigation is currently underway.

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Julian is the former editor of Lovin Malta and has a particular interest in politics, the environment, social issues, and human interest stories.

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