Education Minister Evarist Bartolo did not deem it fit to sack the chief executive officer of the Employment and Training Corporation for lewd comments he passed publicly about a subordinate.

Maybe the minister found it hard to exercise strict discipline on Philip Rizzo knowing that, a few months ago, he could not stop himself from using a Sunday morning Labour Party meeting to attack the Opposition using a vulgar metaphor.

Bartolo had then said that the Nationalist Party is undergoing a hymen-restoration surgery to become a virgin again. Instead of taking action, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had laughed it off; it was one of the many examples we have had in this legislature that anything goes under Labour.

And so, Bartolo could not bring himself to dismiss the ETC CEO. I wasn’t surprised. If a minister – and an education minister at that – finds nothing wrong in using uncalled for language to make a political point, then of course he cannot take drastic action if the top man of one of the authorities under his responsibility talks to a subordinate the way Rizzo did.

Using Facebook, Rizzo wrote that one of his heads of department had the three Bs – brains, boobs and balls – under a photograph of the woman wearing a swimsuit.

But the issue here goes beyond the sexist remark.

It is the person who made the comment, given the responsibilities that he has.

It is wrong for such a comments to be made in public by a chief executive officer of any given company or authority (and anyone else for that matter). It is doubly wrong if the person who made it is the chief executive officer of the authority that it responsible for employment with all that it brings with it – including the promotion of equality at the workplace.

The comment is all the more grounds for dismissal given that the ETC, on its website, prides itself as having officers who “have personal integrity and uphold ethical codes of practice”. The ETC also says that it “won’t let unacceptable behaviour go unchallenged” and pledges NOT to “engage in any activity that could reasonably be seen as bullying, harassment, or in any way improper”.

Well, if Rizzo’s behaviour is not seen as having broken the above rules, then I don’t know what needs to be said to break them.

But the minister thought it fit to just order that all ETC senior management are banned from Facebook.

It is a rather strange decision, and one wonders whether this applies only for ETC senior management or whether this ban is also valid for other senior management staff in other entities falling under the ministry.

It is also pertinent to ask whether the ban to have a Facebook registration also applies to senior management staff in entities that fall under other ministries.

If this is not so, then the minister’s order is discriminatory.