Minister within the Office of the Prime Minister Carmelo Abela has said that he will be replying to the recent decision taken by the Standards Committee on a report penned about him in the coming days in Parliament.
A report published by Standards Commissioner George Hyzler found that Abela had breached ethics with the publication of a newspaper advert using public funds, saying that the advert was intended to boost his image, rather than provide information of value to the public.
Speaker Anglu Farrugia abstained after a split vote between government and opposition members of the Standards Committee regarding the report, meaning that the report was not adopted.
“The report wasn’t not adopted by the committee and as I’ve already said a few times I will be giving my reply in parliament in the coming days,” Abela said.
Abela said that the speaker “did not find that he breached ethical codes which were referred to in the report” when giving his explanation as to why he abstained his vote.
The Government endorses the idea of creating guidelines for adverts, Abela said. On this topic, Hyzler had told the Standards Committee that the idea of creating clear guidelines regarding adverts would help, but that the laws are still clear and should be followed.
There is also the fact that there are no guidelines surrounding this subject. We have been saying this for a while, Abela quipped.
Prime Minister Robert Abela said some days ago that guidelines for politicians to follow vis-à-vis advertorials are in the works.