Former parliamentary secretary kept happy on taxpayer-funded gravy train

Former Labour parliamentary secretary Anthony Agius Decelis, who failed to get re-elected in last March’s general elections after a 14-year stint in parliament, has been kept on the Labour administration’s gravy train with a position on the board of directors of the Foundation for Social Welfare Services (FSWS).

Agius Decelis’ appointment is the second paid position he was given after his failure to be re-elected when Prime Minister Robert Abela removed him from Cabinet in 2020, according to information published in the Government Gazette.

An ECG technician by profession, Agius Decelis was also appointed chairman of the Grand Harbour Regeneration Corporation, another government agency, that is responsible for capital projects in the Grand Harbour area and which has a multi-million-euro budget.

Agius Decelis will have to cope with these appointments on top of his full-time government job within the Health Department.

His daughter, Danica Camilleri Agius Decelis, was also put on the government’s payroll through her engagement at the Malta Medicines Authority, joining the son of Health Minister Chris Fearne and the new Mosta MP and former Labour locality mayor Romilda Baldacchino Zarb.

Agius Decelis has no expertise or knowledge in project management or anything related to large-scale projects administered by the corporation.

This same entity is led by Gino Cauchi, another former Labour MP who failed to be re-elected and who spent time as the Labour Party CEO under the direction of disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat.

His daughter, too, was put on the government payroll. Young lawyer Paula Cauchi – another presenter on the Labour Party’s TV channel, ONE – was appointed by  Fearne to serve on the health council as well as receiving thousands of euros in income from the Malta Financial Services Authority, where she was given a contract by the authority’s former CEO Joseph Cuschieri.