Prime Minister Robert Abela refused to apologise after he was found to have breached ethics in a Facebook advert, a report by the Standards Commissioner shows.

Standards Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi was willing to close the case had he done so, but after the PM’s refusal, he passed on his report to Parliament.

The four members of the Standards in Public Life committee – Jonathan Attard and Andy Ellul for the government, and Mark Anthony Sammut and Ryan Callus for the opposition - today all agreed that the report should be published.

Last month, independent candidate Arnold Cassola, who had filed the complaint, said Abela had been found guilty by the Standards Commissioner of a breach of ethics.

Cassola said he had been informed that a report on a complaint he had filed in February 2023 had been passed on to the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

When this happens, Cassola said, it means that the person on which the complaint was filed, in this case the Prime Minister, had been found guilty of a breach.

Cassola had filed a complaint about a “propaganda video” that had been released by the Office of the Prime Minister. The video showed the Prime Minister meeting people in Gozo, and was uploaded on the government's Facebook page Maltagov.

Cassola had contended that this was blatant advertising for the Prime Minister paid for from taxpayers’ money, and that it had gone against recommendations that had been issued by the Standards Commissioner’s office.

In the report, the commissioner found that the total cost of the video was just €700, of which only €100 was used to boost on social media. He had therefore concluded it was a minor breach and felt a written apology from the prime minister would be enough to consider the case closed.

However, when he wrote to Abela in December, informing him of the breach and asking for an apology, Abela had refused to do so, arguing his rights to a fair hearing were being breached because he was not given the chance to produce evidence.

The 37-second video is titled "Prime Minister Robert Abela visits a number of projects in Gozo". It shows Abela meeting people in public places, with music in the background.

The commissioner said the video “continuously focuses on the prime minister as he meets people and gives no detail about the project”, except for on-screen words that indicate the location of the visit.

The video was uploaded to the MaltaGov Facebook page, which is owned by the Office of the Prime Minister, and was sponsored for greater circulation, meaning that it was advertorial content, the Commissioner said.

Abela argued that the complaint was “frivolous” and that it showed him visiting publicly funded government projects of national importance.

“The visit was intended to give an update about important ongoing government works, of which the public is the ultimate beneficiary, and about which it has a right to be informed,” he said.

Abela’s arguments were shot down by the commissioner, who ruled that the video focused on the PM and did not provide information on the projects.

 “The way this video is presented is intended as a personal advert for the prime minister,” he concluded.

“This office, therefore, deems this case as an unjustified spending of public funds, lack of separation between the role of prime minister and MP, and a lack of respect towards impartiality in the public service,” Azzopardi concluded.

In comments to the media, Cassola said that after having been found guilty of making use  of tax-payer funded personal propaganda, the Prime Minister refused to apologise, despite being given the opportunity by the Standards Commissioner to do so.

   It is so sad to witness that our country is led by a Prime Minister who, “apart from being a compulsive liar”, is also so arrogant and haughty and treats the Maltese people as his feudal serfs.