Tax chief fails to fill €29,000 legal role, hands €78,000 contract to former minister

The Commissioner for Inland Revenue (CIR), Joseph Caruana, defended the hiring of former Gozo Minister Justyne Caruana for a part-time position as his legal advisor, for which she is paid €78,000 per year.

He stated, in replies to The Shift, that this decision was necessary because no one applied for a publicly advertised vacancy for a senior legal officer within his department.

In 2023, Caruana was engaged as a legal advisor to the Customs Department, which falls under the responsibility of the tax commissioner, through a direct order. She is paid a maximum of €78,000 a year for a 30-hour week, while she holds several other government jobs.

Internal government documents reviewed by The Shift and obtained through a Freedom of Information request show that the CIR had proposed less than half that amount—only €29,000—for the position.

According to the job vacancy, published in the Government Gazette, the full-time position offered a starting salary of only €29,000, despite requiring a minimum of five years of experience. Consequently, no lawyers applied for the position.

The CIR then issued a direct order for Justyne Caruana’s services for more than double the amount. The initial low offer for services from experienced lawyers was interpreted as a move to favour Caruana, since it was evident they would not take it up.

Before Caruana’s hiring, the customs department employed two full-time lawyers. One resigned, and another was transferred to a different government department.

As a result, the department found itself without legal representation and published a job vacancy in July 2023 to recruit a new Senior Legal Officer.

When no one expressed interest in the vacancy, Caruana requested that the Finance Ministry issue a direct contract to the former Gozo minister. Why he chose Justyne Caruana from among the many lawyers available is unclear.

Instead of matching the remuneration he offered in the published vacancy, he chose to pay the former Cabinet member more than twice that amount—a total of €78,000 for just 30 hours of work each week. While doing that, Caruana holds three other government positions at the Lands Authority, the Victims Support Agency, and is an advisor to Gozitan Health Minister Jo Etienne Abela.

Paul Zahra, the Permanent Secretary of the Finance Ministry, approved this request without questioning why Caruana was offering the former minister a package of €78,000, especially after advertising a vacancy for the same position at just €29,000 a year.

Justyne Caruana’s contract was extended for another year in the summer of 2024 under the same conditions, and no full-time lawyer has been recruited for the Tax Department as of now.

Caruana has been dismissed from Cabinet twice during the same legislative term.

In 2020, she was asked to resign following revelations that her then-husband, Silvio Valletta (who was the Police Deputy Commissioner at the time), had close ties with businessman Yorgen Fenech, who is accused of involvement in the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Less than a year later, she was reappointed as education minister. However, she was dismissed again by Prime Minister Robert Abela when it became known that one of her first actions upon rejoining Cabinet was to grant an irregular contract to her new boyfriend, footballer Daniel Bogdanovic.

She is currently receiving approximately €180,000 from government funds each year – three times the declared income of Prime Minister Robert Abela.