PN says Project Green CEO should be removed over unfair dismissal decision

The Nationalist Party has said Joseph Cuschieri should be removed from the headship of Project Green after having been found of carrying out an illegal termination of an employee at the MFSA, where he had formerly been CEO.

Cuschieri was found guilty by the Industrial Tribunal of having committed an injustice against an employee while serving as CEO of the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), and of causing undue hardship to the employee and his family in an illegal and unjust manner.

In a strongly worded decision, the Industrial Tribunal condemned the illegal manner in which Cuschieri had acted towards this employee, who had been dismissed from his job for objecting to Cuschieri’s decision-making.

The Tribunal ordered the MFSA to pay a sum of €413,688 as compensation for the income lost by the employee during the years he had to wait for this decision, as well as for moral damages.

It was also decided that the employee should be reinstated in his position within the MFSA.

Since his resignation from the MFSA on an unrelated incident, Cuschieri has been appointed CEO of Project Green.

“His position is no longer tenable,” the PN’s spokespersons on finance and the economy, MPs Graham Bencini and Jerome Caruana Cilia, said.

“Minister Miriam Dalli must immediately remove Cuschieri, and if she does not, Prime Minister Robert Abela must dismiss him himself. It is unacceptable for a high-ranking government official to remain in such a position. If he is not removed, Robert Abela will be perpetuating a culture of impunity in the country. He would be rewarding those who do wrong, break the law, and ruin people’s lives,” the two MPs said.

“The MFSA must immediately take the necessary legal steps to ensure that the damages rightly owed to the employee are not paid out of public taxes but by those who blatantly and shamelessly committed this illegality.

“The MFSA Board of Governors, as well as the Executive Committee, cannot remain silent in the face of such injustice. Malta’s reputation in the financial sector has already suffered significant blows and cannot afford more scandals. The primary interest of those running the MFSA should be the public’s interest, not that of the Prime Minister’s friend or his Chief of Staff.”