Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1538322
LAST week, I suggested a few things the PN should do if it wants to get elected. Perhaps, I should have added that it needs to vet its candidates properly and make sure that everyone representing the Nationalist Party is above reproach and will not tarnish its chances of being a possible alternative. Of course, this ap- plies even more so to the Labour Party, which has had an abysmal track record in this respect, with more than its share of elected officials who have repeatedly brought shame to the present adminis- tration while robbing the country. But when you are a party in Opposi- tion, you cannot afford to have anyone on your team who dig you deeper into an already existing hole from which you cannot seem to be able to climb out of. Obviously, no one could have predict- ed that Francine Farrugia, a relatively mild-looking young woman, aged 31, would be the type of person who could embezzle (allegedly) the shocking sum of €2.3 million from her employer, MCAST. For all outward appearances, as a PN councillor on the Siġġiewi local council, she was diligently pointing out short- comings by the current administration. In July of this year, she wrote an indig- nant (justified) post because in this day and age, no money was being spent by the government in state schools to pro- vide air conditioners. "We have money for other things, why don't we give pri- ority to such a basic thing as the health and wellbeing of our children?" In December of 2024 she was even pro- moting the Ġemma money management courses at her local council in Siġġiewi— the irony of which now hits you smack in the face. Apart from describing herself as a dig- ital creator, Ms Farrugia was a finance manager and lecturer at MCAST and also ran a gift shop in her home town, which served as a sub post office for MaltaPost. Behind all these many hats and facade of respectability, however, there seems to have been another type of woman al- together. As the person responsible for the payroll at the college, she quietly and successfully (allegedly) siphoned off enough money to buy a property, cars and go on a €113,000 spending spree of luxury goods at Harrods in London. During a two-year period between September 2023 and May 2025, the po- lice discovered that she had transferred €422,420 into her bank accounts and an- other €1.9 million into her Revolut ac- count. In fact, this is a salient point, be- cause it appears that it was not MCAST itself which uncovered the misappropri- ation of funds, but a police investigation. It was the police who contacted MCAST in July to inform them of the investigation and that they had stopped a €122,000 transfer into Farrugia's ac- count. We have so many questions… The most obvious question on every- one's lips is: Why didn't MCAST catch that Farrugia was (allegedly) issuing double salaries to herself, or one salary for an employee and another for her- self? A spokesperson for the college con- firmed that "annual audits have been carried out consistently, including over the past two years" and that an exter- nal audit is currently underway. Yet we have also learned from another report, that an audit by the National Audit Of- fice in 2019 turned up "various inac- curacies" after a random test of allow- ances and payments by MCAST to its employees. "Although if taken individually, amounts were not always material, the incidence of inaccuracies is of concern," the Auditor General wrote. MCAST confirmed during the audit that the payroll's inbuilt validation sys- tem "does not function". "As a result, if an obvious error is re- corded, for instance, 100 hours of over- time are inputted by a lecturer for a particular day, this is not being automat- ically flagged by the system," the Auditor General said. Words fail me. How can an institution like MCAST function without a robust payroll system, and more significantly, was there someone else in on this elabo- rate scam, who has yet to be found out? The second question is, what will hap- pen to all that money that was (alleged- ly) stolen? Will Francine Farrugia (who is now remanded under arrest without bail) be made to pay back every cent and will her assets be seized until she does so? When people defraud "the government" it is not some faceless grey building, nor is it Robert Abela & co. personally who have been robbed. It is being taken from us; every single one of us who pay taxes and VAT, and who obey the law to the letter. Finally, the last question is what is perhaps baffling everyone the most. So, MCAST didn't notice; no one who around her noticed that she was living such a disproportionately lavish life on her salary, and perhaps most incredibly, the banks and Revolut did not flag it ei- ther—or at least not until July when the police investigation started). No wonder most of us have the impres- sion that banks pick on the "little people" and come down on them like a tonne of bricks for innocuous transactions, and yet when millions are involved, it takes two years for it to be discovered. Francine Farrugia managed to (alleg- edly) misappropriate the funds for so long because once she got away with it the first time, and realised that no one had noticed, she probably believed she would never get caught. I don't know whether she ever wore any of her lux- ury items, one of which was a neck- lace worth €5,000, but the fact that she bought property and had even entered into promises of sale for other properties makes one wonder whatever happened to all the due diligence one normally en- counters when you are asked about your source of funds. The amount transferred to Revolut is especially mind-boggling because we all use it and I for one always assumed that they are strict about dubiously large transactions. When I looked up the section about source of funds, their website says: "If we need additional in- formation about your wealth or income, you'll receive an email, a push notifica- tion, and see a banner on your in-app 'Home' screen. We'll also let you know if there's a due date for submitting these details. Providing this information will ensure your account remains functional and helps combat financial crime. While you aren't obliged to provide these doc- uments, we'll restrict or close your ac- count as per our T&Cs if we do not re- ceive them." Again, the question is, if this is how the police investigation was triggered, why did it take so long? The sardonic quips doing the rounds about Harrods are understandable, be- cause humour is a great coping mecha- nism at a time when this country keeps descending further and further into the pits, but in reality, this latest scandal is enough to fill you with hopeless despair. It is yet another example of a complete lack of a moral compass among some elected officials which inevitably filters down to the hoi polloi—for the reason- ing is inevitably going to be, if they are doing it, why shouldn't I? 3 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 10 AUGUST 2025 OPINION Josanne Cassar A Harrods spending spree… and so many unanswered questions She has worked in the field of communications and journalism for the last 30 years Will Francine Farrugia be made to pay back every cent and will her assets be seized until she does so?