Luke Dalli, the eldest son of Equality Minister Helena Dalli, and former tourism minister Edward Zammit Lewis, are raking in tens of thousands a year from legal work, which the Lands Authority has farmed-out to their private offices, the Times of Malta is informed.
Detailed information submitted in Parliament by Transport Minister Ian Borg shows that Dr Dalli’s son, a young lawyer with a few years of experience, is being paid €3,000 a month by the Lands Authority for work which used to be carried out by in-house lawyers.
Dr Zammit Lewis is being paid €2,118 a month.
The Transport Minister told Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi that so far, Dr Dalli has been paid more than €45,000 from taxpayer’s coffers while the former tourism minister had already received over €30,000. The two are not the only politically associated lawyers which the Lands Authority, currently led by James Piscopo, the former CEO of the Labour party, has engaged.
Paid €3,000 a month by the Authority for work which used to be carried out by in-house lawyers
Architect Robert Musumeci, a former PN mayor who switched to Labour, is also conducting legal work for the authority and has been paid some €7,500 in legal fees so far.
The architect, who also holds a lawyer’s warrant, has been a consultant at the Lands Authority since the time it fell under the political remit of former parliamentary secretary Deborah Schembri.
Read: Musumeci leading Lands Authority reform
The latter has also been put on the list of lawyers serving the authority but according to Dr Borg, she has received no payment yet for her legal work.
Minister Helena Dalli’s son, a personal friend of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, has been given a number of lucrative appointments and contracts since Labour was returned to power in 2013.
Soon after Dr Muscat became Prime Minister, Dr Dalli was employed by the Malta Arts Council as its legal officer. He later was the recipient of a direct order from Economy Minister Chris Cardona to provide services related to communications, support legal services and areas related to intellectual property.
At the time, Dr Cardona had also employed Dr Dalli’s second son, Jean, as his ministry’s coordinator for the European Union presidency and paid €2,000 a month.
Since losing his Cabinet post, Dr Zammit Lewis has made frequent headlines.
Apart from returning to his private practice as a lawyer, the former minister is on the payroll of the Water and Energy Ministry, the Office of the Prime Minister through a €100-an-hour contract at Identity Malta and the Lands Authority.
Besides his honoraria as an MP, Dr Zammit Lewis was also appointed Chair of a parliamentary committee which comes with extra remuneration and perks.