Inmates owed €16,000 for design and sewing work carried out for a project endorsed by the Prime Minister’s wife, Michelle Muscat, are still in the dark about when they will receive their money.

The project is endorsed by the Marigold Foundation chaired by Ms Muscat, with 10 per cent of the proceeds from the project called Love, Faith, Forgiveness going to the foundation.

One inmate told The Sunday Times of Malta yesterday that they have not heard from the person who runs the project, Mary Grace Pisani, since February, when she said she would not be returning to prison after contracting the flu.

“I received €100 on February 23 and we were all given a list of the work that needs to be done by March 13. During this time we were told that Ms Pisani would no longer be coming to prison and the project was going to be stopped. Till this very day we have not received the money we are owed,” the inmate said.

The inmate was at pains to thank the Corradino prison director and the NGO Mid-Dlam għad-Dawl for doing their utmost to recover the money owed to 14 female prisoners.

The project, which is not a registered NGO and therefore has no need to provide copies of its accounts, was set up in 2014.

In a statement yesterday the Marigold foundation said inmates had been paid €14,700 since the project began in 2014. Pending payments would be paid “as per the normal procedure,” the foundation said.

The point is that we were promised that we would be paid yet we are still owed thousands

This amount is separate from the €16,000 the inmates are due, which is mainly owed for 400 costumes sewn for the November 2015 Commonwealth summit.

This paper requested a copy of the project’s accounts from the foundation. All it received was a screenshot of an excel sheet detailing the payments that the project has received since its inception.

The inmate confirmed that there is no formal system for payments, meaning that individual inmates have to chase Ms Pisani for their money.

Ms Pisani says the prisoners will be paid what they are owed once she receives the money from her clients.

Ms Muscat explained on Wednesday that inmates were given a price list for the work they did, with the final product then being sold at “market prices”.

“Prisoners know what they are going to sew and they can see how much money they will make from it because they have this price list.

“The pricelist is based on market prices. When someone buys a product sewn here they pay the market price. This does not mean that prisoners are paid the full prices.

“This is obvious, they are within an institution and this institution is all voluntary and charitable,” Ms Muscat said.

The foundation denied that inmates had been barred from their prisoner workshop, as had been claimed by the inmate, saying that the project was put on hold due to Ms Pisani’s illness.

The inmate said: “The sad thing is that this really was a good initiative. I enjoyed being able to get out of my cell and to be honest would have done it for free.

“Nevertheless, the point is that we were promised that we would be paid yet we are still owed thousands.”

jacob.borg@timesofmalta.com