Last week, the Standards Commissioner found that Finance Minister Clyde Caruana breached the code of ethics regarding an advert, which came in the form of a sponsored post on the Finance Ministry’s Facebook page.

Independent politician Arnold Cassola had filed a complaint with the Standards Commissioner over it. The post included a photo of Minister Caruana, together with his name and a quote stating that the government was to spend €1.1 billion to absorb rising energy costs. The amount the advertisement cost, according to the Standards Commissioner’s report, wasn’t very much, just €83.90.

Regardless, it’s not about the amount, but about the principle, and a breach of ethics was found. What is also noteworthy is that the minister apologised and paid the amount back into the public coffers and promised to avoid such situations in the future quickly, albeit after the Standards Commissioner informed the minister that he was prepared close the case under article 22(5) of the Standards in Public Life Act if the Minister made an apology. “Article 22(5) of the Act empowers the Commissioner to close a case if it is not serious and if the person investigated remedies the breach of ethics to the Commissioner’s satisfaction,” the commissioner had said.

While the guidelines regarding advertisements had been published by the former Standards Commissioner and the minister should have known better, the minister did the right thing in the end. He wasn’t instructed to pay back the money, but did anyway.

Government should advertise about its policies and its work. It needs to inform the people about what it is doing, for instance some examples would be about grants available for certain activities, or to update the people about upcoming major road works, or even to market Malta abroad for tourism purposes. But what the new Standards Commissioner made clear as per his statement about this case, is that “government advertisements should not feature the names or photographs of ministers.” Even on such a small level as a sponsored Facebook post. The aim is to ensure that public funds are not spent on personal publicity.

It is there in black on white, and politicians have to follow these guidelines.

One must also note just how quickly this particular ethics breach case concluded. We are not really used to such situations, as in most cases where an ethics breach is found usually end up going to the Standards Committee, and then there would be debates on whether the person is guilty or not and what action, if any, to take. It is good that in small cases, a remedy can quickly be found and such cases could be used to set the record straight. Of course for bigger cases the committee must always be involved. As for the composition of the committee, that is something that this newsroom has written many times about and is an issue that needs to be revisited.