Malta’s musical icon Ira Losco is using her personal social media platforms to promote politicians through a public contract, The Shift can report.
Considered to be one of Malta’s most popular singers, and who has a strong social media following, Losco has been contracted by Project Green to promote the new public agency’s projects being spearheaded by Environment Minister Miriam Dalli and CEO Steve Ellul.
But in addition to promoting the agency’s projects by posting pictures of her family enjoying Project Green’s ‘new and improved public spaces’, the celebrity is also inserting links in her social media posts to the personal pages of Minister Miriam Dalli and prospective MEP candidate Steve Ellul, who Dalli has chosen to run the agency and its €700 million budget.
Losco’s social media posts do not indicate in any way that they are sponsored as normally required by advertising standards.
When contacted, Losco acknowledged her posts are paid for by public funds.
“Yes, I am contracted by Project Green and that is why I am putting up those posts,” Ira Losco told The Shift when contacted.
Asked whether she was also obliged to link her posts to politicians’ personal social media pages although she was being paid with public funds, Losco said, “I do not really see anything wrong with this to tell you the truth.
“But now that you are pointing it out, I will take your observations into consideration.”
According to the ministerial code of ethics and guidelines issued by the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life, politicians are not allowed to use public funds for self-promotion.
Malta’s top musician has always stayed out of partisan politics in her very successful career, and it is so far not known how much she is being paid to promote Project Green.
Set up a few months ago, the Project Green agency has been given a €700 million budget to ‘greenwash’ the island.
Steve Ellul – a BOV employee who is reportedly set to run as an MEP on the Labour ticket in next year’s elections – has been appointed as the agency’s CEO with a remuneration of over €90,000 a year.
The Shift has previously reported how incumbent Labour MEPs and other prospective candidates have complained to Prime Minister Robert Abela about how the agency is being used by Ellul to promote his political future with the help of Minister Dalli, who is a former MEP herself.
Tens of thousands of euros have already been spent to promote the agency’s initiatives, with Ellul and Dalli featuring prominently in publicly-funded interviews, promotional pieces and campaigns.
Sources close to one Labour MEP complained to The Shift confidentially that, “The use of Ira Losco is another blatant misuse of public funds to boost Steve Ellul’s profile with voters. It is not on that she is allowing herself to be used in this way.”
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Money money money must be funny !!
Seems these two have been bought by the Government. Well there is a price for everything!
Someone has made friends with lady Abela?..
When it is exposed as just another labour scam she?ll run for the hills.
‘But now that you are pointing it out, I will take your observations into consideration.”
Nine years ago, Daphne took Ira Losco’s closeness to the PL into consideration.
Some things never change and no matter how many years pass, it always stays the same.
Come off it, Ira Losco. Singers should stick to singing. | Daphne Caruana Galizia
The PL has a net like a spider. The more time passes and it remains intact, the wider it gets and the more people find themselves, voluntarily or by ‘connecting’ with friends and their friends who themselves have other friends in all the ‘PL tier classes’ to reach the top. This net is solid and once one gets into it, there is hardly a way out because the more on tries to get out of it, the more difficult it gets.
It goes without saying that the quoted last line by Ira Losco means nothing. She’s just one of those the PL has on their side. At least she was that frank to admit it, just to in the same line declare that there’s nothing wrong with it. A mentality she shares with all the other PLers, high and low.
I would not think that personalities would lend themselves easily for gain, other than in connection with their profession or skills.
Some do – and they are not described by honourable titles.
The definition of politically exposed persons, applies to Miriam Dalli and Steve Ellul, and also possibly to Ira Losco, because of her affiliation with Miriam Dalli and Steve Ellul and also her dependence on funds paid to her by both.
Even her sister has had meetings with the Tourism Ministry in the past. Its all about contacts.
Its funny how people can be easily bought.
She stopped complaining about this Government because the grass is 700million times greener on Miriam?s side ?.. so much so that she is displaying her shiny red boots with pride!
1km upright plants suppost gsrden cost us over 1 million euros, regional rd matsa. Jigu 1000 euros per meter? Mela ara kemm ha jisirqu min dawn il 700 miljun green malta. Wara li hxew pajjiz issa se jaghmlu ftit gonna, too late
The real scandal is the stories that she posts on social media. She works at a church school that my son goes to and was disgusted at the stories she posts online. One of them was about how she was going to go down on her husband that night. Hamalla ta veru.
Lets see if she will be replacing Dame Miriam Spiteri in the near future.
In Valletta, at St George’s Square, the place has been turned into a small garden. One commenter on the Times of Malta website wrote beneath the article that this reminds him of the old Castille Place like it once was. I also remember how it looked like in the past, before Joseph Muscat turned it into a flat area.
Project Green looks like another attempt to deflect from the environmental changes the PL has implemented since being in power.
Jaqq. X’tidlik. Wara li tghidx kemm waqajt fil-baxx meta kantajt Tema79 go musical partiggjan u falz, Ira Losco ghadek ikkonfermajt ruhek fil-kategorija tal-kantanti ma’ Mary Spiteri. Forsi Jason Micallef jithajjar jaghmel dokumentarju fuqek bil-fondi tal-poplu.
Mieghi tlift il-qaleb u l-gbejna ghal ghomrok ghax il-laghaqizmu tieghek idardarni.
no it is not funny. it’s a disgrace
“Malta?s top musician has always stayed out of partisan politics” seems she had a price and is now bought, Rosie mark2 maybe?
Maybe that was the day she was bought with this new contract?
Not only. It?s another Labour scam that will pay major dividends to a select few.
What will the the new ethics commissioner say?
This is OUR Money used for making political mileage to politicians.
I think that singers if they want a career in singing they should keep away from Politics especially here in Malta.
You are right. No singers or artists should get involved in politics. Naturally this does not mean they do not have a right to their personal political preferences..
I agree with you on that one. In Malta, it seems that Politics are not inclined to keep away from artists, especially the PL.
An artist is also a citizen and with the right of participation in politics, in voting and also in membership. When it comes to a mixing of career in one’s profession with political support in propaganda, then the image might suffer.
One just has to have a look at how the PL govt is ‘serving’ the Maltese film industry and how much money it is throwing out of the window for international companies who have a far bigger budget than the local ones. Some good friends or let me put it that way, friendly minded PLers in high places, can make things been done.
As controversial as it often is, the locals are more in disadvantage if they keep strict to their profession. That is also a sign of how the PL is ‘buying’ people, or people are creeping up the PL in order to move in in their career.
Yes, and while the PL gambling continues, the amount of state debts increases. Until Malta finds itself at the brink of state bankruptcy and has to be bailed out by the ECB and IMF because it is a member of the Eurozone.
I suppose that when time comes, and it will come, the PL won’t be in power anymore and leave it to the others to sort out the mess they have created and still worsening it.
Some Maltese expats had to experience the negative effect of Malta’s tarnished international reputation already. If Malta becomes a ‘Greece 2.0’ case, it might rather get worse. People in the other EU and Eurozone member states will then complain that they have to pay for the failures and the greed of the politicians of the Maltese government.
When Greece was bailed out for all the known reasons (tax evasion and corruption), what I heard people saying about the Greeks wasn’t nice at all. Hardly anybody was really ‘happy to help’ them. It was often said that the Greeks have brought it all unto themselves in the first place. One can expect to hear and read the same about the Maltese in future, when the ruin is completed by the PL.
Alas, the PL couldn’t care less, because they live today and don’t care about the future, and certainly not beyond their own financial profits, as long as these are on the horizon. But the payday is dawning soon afterwards on the same horizon too, when the ‘never ending partying Laburisti’ have to see the sunset of their lavishly lived era.
The mindset of an islander is often perceived as being narrow minded because people can’t see beyond the shores of their own island. The UK is the worst recent example for this in compare with Malta. Same sort of politicians, same greed, same incompetence, allegations of corruption, just that over there, it’s the Tories who are in power. Merely three years longer than the PL is in Malta.
Ira who?