Economy Minister Silvio Schembri denied using public funds to purchase adverts promoting his personal political profile in a press conference on Friday.

Schembri was one of four government ministers named by the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life George Hyzler as having “failed to properly distinguish between the official and personal spheres in the use of their personal social media channels.”

In his report which delved into the use of public resources vis a vis the Ministers’ personal social media pages, Hyzler concluded that “it is common practice for ministers and parliamentary secretaries to publish content that appears to have been created specifically for their personal social media channels using official resources.”

“In this way they are using public resources to raise their own personal and political profiles. This represents misuse of public resources and a blurring of their roles as members of the executive and as politicians”, he concluded.

Schembri was named along with fellow ministers Aaron Farrugia, Edward Scicluna, and Ian Borg as having acted incorrectly in this regard.  Education Minister Owen Bonnici was the only Minister from the group analysed who was found to have acted correctly.

Questioned by journalists over the report on Friday, Schembri said that he had no problem in refunding the money he used to boost his Facebook account because there simply “wasn’t a cent which was used from public funds”.

He said that he had answered a parliamentary question in this regard; however, this parliamentary question could not be found.  The report was published on Thursday – when there is no parliamentary sitting – meaning that the PQ in question is likely to appear in a sitting at some point next week.

Pushed by this newsroom with regards to Hyzler’s conclusions, Schembri again reiterated that he had not used public funds for his own social media page, and noted that what the Standards Commissioner did was to suggest the addition of a set of guidelines for politicians to follow for when it comes to their social media profiles.

He said that Hyzler’s suggestions had been taken onboard and that the suggested guidelines are now in place for all members of government to follow.

Hyzler does indeed confirm this in his report, noting with satisfaction the government’s cooperation the setting of these guidelines through Justice Minister Edward Zammit Lewis.

The PN reacted to the report by calling for the ministers in question to pay back the public funds in question and said that it expected the police to investigate the matter without delay.

Asked by the PN’s media whether he intended to apologise for using public resources, Schembri took a swipe at the Opposition, noting that he understands why the PN and its media want to deviate the national discourse away from the government’s economic aid.

He said that if the country had to take the economic advice that Adrian Delia had given to the PN as what he would do for the country, then the country would be facing far worse problems today if he was Prime Minister.