Catherine Tabone, the Labour government’s favourite director of culture is engaged in blatant fraud and misuse of public funds on an extensive scale. Apart from fixing up the Labour government with celebratory concerts, and helping other government officials and Labour Party donors rake in public funds, Catherine Tabone is also engaged in blatant and daylight fraud with other government entities and other government officials.
Most of Catherine Tabone’s fraud and misuse of public funds can be found stamped and recorded in official public documents, and she isn’t very discrete about it, because she is dumb as they come.
One of these cases is the fraudulent expenditure on an opera that Catherine organised for her special friend, Lawrence Renes. Written on Skin is a complex opera written by George Benjamin that was recently conducted by Lawrence Renes. Somehow, Catherine Tabone became special friends with Lawrence Renes and decided to give him a job by organising this opera in Malta with local resources. In the end, the opera wasn’t even played, yet Catherine Tabone issued a swathe of payments related to the opera even if the work remained undelivered. Some of the payments related to this failed project have been made public thanks to a Parliamentary Question by Opposition MP, Julie Zahra. I am reproducing the estimates below.
As you can see there have been payments made for work which was not delivered, and also payments for work that was never done such as the post-production work declared by PBS. The rights for the opera are bizarrely low and the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra was even paid an unusual €42,721 for a concert it didn’t play. Other musicians were brought to Malta and paid for their service but didn’t deliver their work in the end.
It would be understandable to pay musicians if you cancel their concert, but paying such a lump sum for a concert that was never held by the MPO is unusual since the MPO is usually paid much lower fees for a concert. Also, it’s very strange that a sound engineer would be paid for a concert that was never held. On the other hand, the PBS payments are blatant fraud because this is for work that was never done. I am also told that the actual expenditure for this failed concert, the expenditure has actually been much higher than what Catherine has presented.
serq biss u national debt dejjem tiela
This is very serious and should be investigated immediately.
Another pig at the trough….kullhadd dara jbill subajh fil hawt tal-ilma mbierek!!!
I respect you and your work a lot but I’m afraid you are mistaken about this. We had started rehearsals for Written on Skin and, if I remember correctly, we were nearly half way through when one of the woodwind section got Covid, placing many musicians in quarantine. Thus, another programme was devised so as not to lose the opportunity to create something meaningful during Covid and so as not to have made all that effort for nothing. On the afternoon of the concert yet another musician tested positive so more musicians were quarantined. A second alternative programme was devised in a very short period of time – that programme was recorded and broadcast on tv. If I remember well this story was even reported internationally at the time since it was about music winning against all odds.