The NGO Repubblika wants two ministers and a minister’s wife to be investigated and charged by police in connection with a Standards Commissioner report which was published on Thursday.

Two ministers, Clayton Bartolo and Clint Camilleri, were found by the Standards Commissioner to have abused their power when Bartolo's then-girlfriend Amanda Muscat was given a job she had no qualifications for, and did not do.

The tourism and Gozo ministers respectively were found to have failed to administer public funds diligently, Standards Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi said in a report which was published on Thursday by the parliamentary ethics committee.

The news of the report led Repubblika, through its lawyer Jason Azzopardi, to file a complaint (‘kwerela) with Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa.

In the complaint, Azzopardi wrote that the report had shown that the two ministers had given a “phantom job” to Bartolo’s then-girlfriend, and now-wife, from public funds.

The complaint continues that the report noted that Barotlo and Camilleri together with Amanda Muscat had engaged in a “conspiracy” to permit Muscat to receive €67,000 in public funds for work which the ministers knew she was not qualified and, more so, never did or started doing.

With this mind, Azzopardi wrote that Bartolo, Camilleri and Muscat were guilty of acting as “members of a criminal association” as public offices, and breached the Criminal Code on six counts.

Azzopardi said the articles 124, 127, 293, 294, 308, and 310(1)(a) of the Criminal Code had all been breached.  These are offences relating to one’s role as a public official, embezzlement of public funds, aggravated fraud through misappropriation, and obtaining money under false pretenses.

The complaint noted that the trio should be found guilty of money laundering as well.

Azzopardi asked Gafa to keep Repubblika updated, and also copied the Attorney General into the complaint because, the former PN MP said, she had to issue a freezing order in line with money laundering laws.