A magisterial inquiry and a police investigation have been launched into the misuse of public funds by ministers on social media, Lovin Malta reported.

The news portal said all Cabinet members are under investigation.

Last month, Standards Commissioner George Hyzler issued a report that found "widespread" misuse of public resources by ministers and parliamentary secretaries.

His investigation was triggered by a complaint by Lovin Malta CEO Chris Peregin.

The news portal had said that at least €1.2 million had been spent by ministries on social media between 2013 and 2018, despite the fact that many of them did not have official Facebook pages during this period.

Hyzler had said that it was widespread practice for ministers to use public resources in the generation of content for their personal pages in Facebook and other social media.

He had concluded that this was an abuse "because the ministers in question are using public resources to raise their personal and political profiles."

Content generated using public resources should be uploaded to official sites, he had said, and ministers can their share on their personal media accounts.

To investigate the complaint, the Commissioner took a sample of posts by five different ministers in their personal Facebook accounts. He found that only one of these five examples represented good practice. The other four involved misuse of public resources.

Hyzler had also produced guidelines, adding that the government had already agreed to follow them.

He said this was a "highly positive development which suggests that the practices described by this case report will soon be a thing of the past." He was therefore considering this to be a closed case.

Yet the report found its way before the National Audit Office, which then passed it on to the police.

Magistrate Doreen Clarke is leading an inquiry, while Inspector Rennie Stivala from the Economic Crimes Unit is leading the police probe.

Prime Minister Robert Abela recently said that this case was "closed" since ministers were now abiding by draft guidelines prepared by the Standards Commissioner.