Clifton Grima is the minister responsible for MCAST. He's been Education Minister since 2021. He should have known about the disaster at MCAST's payroll, which the Auditor General repeatedly pointed out. Clifton Grima did nothing about it. Through his inaction and incompetence he enabled the theft of over 2.3 million euro of our money allegedly by a PN councillor.
In 2019 the NAO found "various inaccuracies" in payments made to MCAST employees. "The incidence of inaccuracies is of concern", the Auditor General warned. MCAST knew its payroll was a disaster. It confirmed to the NAO that the payroll's inbuilt validation system "does not function". An MCAST lecturer could claim 100 hours of overtime for one day and the system wouldn't even flag it.
MCAST pledged it would have a functioning validation system preventing such "errors" "by the first quarter of 2021". That's the year Clifton Grima replaced the disgraced Justyne Caruana as Education Minister.
But when Clifton Grima took over, MCAST's payroll was still a disaster, open to rampant abuse. You'd think the minute he was appointed he would have studied the latest NAO reports on the institutions falling under his remit and questioned whether the Auditor's recommendations were implemented.
Clearly Minister Grima did nothing of the sort. He was too busy making propaganda videos of himself for personal political gain. Or maybe he was caught up in a spat with the Standards Commissioner, and refusing to apologise after having been found guilty of breaching ethics.
Two years after the NAO's warning, MCAST told the NAO that the payroll validation system was still in "testing phase". MCAST defended itself by claiming it was carrying out random payroll checks on 5% of payments issued. When the NAO conducted its own sampling it quickly identified more overpayments. One employee was paid 7,000 euro "erroneously" while out on parental leave. Another was getting an "allowance" they weren't entitled to. Again the NAO concluded that "thorough checking is not being done before each payroll run".
After having first promised to have the payroll validation system up and running by 2021, MCAST revised its pledge. It promised to have that verification system in place by September 2023. So what did Clifton Grima do about that unacceptable delay? What action did the minister take to ensure our money wasn't being "erroneously" paid to MCAST employees? None at all.
In 2023 the Auditor General conducted another audit. By then Grima had been in post for almost two years. Again the NAO found payroll controls at MCAST still lacking. Not surprisingly MCAST's external auditors, PFK Malta, couldn't sign off on MCAST's 2023 accounts. They still haven't almost 2 years later. PFK told the Times of Malta that there are "pending issues to be discussed in confidence with MCAST board of directors".
The MCAST board governors had probably been focused on tormenting geologist Peter Gatt and abusing their power to harass, intimidate and punish him simply for pointing out the "poor quality" of the study units at MCAST. MCAST was pretty efficient at meting out its vindictive expulsion of dedicated conscientious lecturers. MCAST's time was taken up engaging in acts deemed by the Ombudsman to be "oppressive and tantamount to degrading treatment"
No wonder Francine Farrugia found it so easy to allegedly siphon 2.3 million euro out of taxes through that shoddy MCAST payroll. The former PN councillor was allegedly able to issue "double salaries" to herself over a period extending from 2023 to May 2025. She was able to transfer 1.9 million euro into her Revolut account and another 422,420 euro into her other bank accounts. As those millions drained out of MCAST, nobody noticed. It was only the police who drew MCAST's attention to the daylight robbery going on under their very noses when an attempted 122,000 euro transfer into Farrugia's account was flagged as suspicious.
Clifton Grima, the man responsible for this mess, expressed his "anger" and "disappointment" when the news of Francine Farrugia's alleged fraud and embezzlement leaked. He should be apologising. We should be the ones who are angry. That's our money that's been stolen.
Clifton Grima expressed "my appreciation for the joint efforts made by the police corps, the MCAST administration and all those who worked to ensure an expedited and efficient process". MCAST had no role in uncovering this massive fraud. It was thanks to a Suspicious Transaction Report from the bank that the police started investigations. If it weren't for the bank and the police, MCAST would have continued to haemorrhage millions more of our money.
Yet Clifton Grima is thanking MCAST who for years on end allowed this shocking disaster in their payroll. MCAST messed up but the minister heaps praise on them because he's the one who's selected the majority of MCAST's board of governors.
Clifton Grima commented that MCAST would "continue its work in favour of students while ensuring that it continues to safeguard the principles of good governance, accountability and transparency". What transparency? MCAST's lawyer requested a media ban on the name of the educational institute. MCAST is so transparent that it didn't even want the country to know where those 2.3 million euro were stolen from. If it were up to MCAST its name would have been concealed from the public. That's not transparency, that's devious secrecy. And that secrecy would have served one purpose - to shield Clifton Grima. Thankfully the court denied the request.
Now Clifton Grima has appointed retired judge Antonio Mizzi, the husband of Labour's former MEP Marlene Mizzi, to conduct an inquiry. Grima wants Judge Mizzi to check whether MCAST has "automatic mechanisms to detect suspicious activity". The NAO warned him repeatedly that MCAST hasn't put such safeguards in place. Grima doesn't need an inquiry to tell him that. Now he wants the inquiry concluded in 6 weeks. What's the rush - he has multiple NAO reports telling him what he needs to know.
Clifton Grima should own up to his own staggering incompetence. He allowed a disastrous situation to persist for years. It's not "anger and disappointment" he should feel, but shame and embarrassment. He should acknowledge that his shocking ineptitude enabled that massive heist and resign.