Photo: Clayton Bartolo (left) first recruited Amanda Muscat as a private secretary before she was promoted to being a consultant, a role she retained when she was transferred to Clint Camilleri's (right) Gozo Ministry 

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 today by the parliamentary ethics committee.

In a statement on 23 October, independent politician Arnold Cassola, who had filed the complaint on the issue to the Standards Commissioner, said that the report by the commissioner had been passed onto the Parliament's Committee for Standards in Public Life. A meeting of the committee today led to the publication of the report.

Cassola called for the investigation in 2022, when he alleged that Muscat, who was Bartolo's girlfriend and private secretary at the time, was transferred to the Gozo Ministry, as well as that she was not turning up for work.

Cassola had asked the commissioner to investigate whether Bartolo acted with nepotism or favouritism with his "girlfriend", why Camilleri was allowing his employee to not show up for work, and whether both ministers breached ethics.

Azzopardi found that Amanda Muscat, now Bartolo's wife, was first promoted from being Bartolo's personal assistance to his consultant with an increased salary of almost €62,000 and, later, this was upped to €68,000 when she moved to Camilleri's ministry in 2021.

The 40-page report showed that Muscat did not have the necessary qualifications for the job and did not do consultancy work. By and large she continued to work as Bartolo's private secretary, with a consultant's salary, even when she was employed with Camilleri.

"Muscat was appointed policy consultant with the benefits that come with it arbitrarily, without justification, both because she was not qualified and because she did not fulfil the work that her role entailed," Azzopardi concluded.

Azzopardi's report found that there were inconsistencies in the testimonies given by Muscat, the two ministers and the heads of secretariat and the Office of the Prime Minister was aware that she was still working in Bartolo's office after she had been technically employed by Camilleri.

Muscat and Bartolo developed a relationship when the two started working together and they eventually got married last summer.

As a consultant at the Tourism Minister, Muscat had a salary of  €39,414, which increased to €61,888 with allowances, including one for her expert opinion which she was not qualified to give. Her "transfer" to work with Camilleri had landed her a more lucrative pay-check of €40,183, which increased to €67,657 with allowances.

Ministers' conde of ethics lays down that they should not appoint spouses or relatives by consanguinity to the first degree to their private secretariats. The commissioner concluded that this did not apply to relationships outside marriage, so there was no breach in this case although they were in a relationship.

But the commissioner did find fault in Muscat's qualifications, as she had no experience or special expertise in any sector related to tourism to justify her contracts.

She has A level and intermediate certificates and obtained a diploma in leadershop and management in 2017, and her work experience was that of a secretary or personal assistance. Consultants are expected to advise ministers on policy and strategy, the commissioner said, and they require vast experience or specialised studies. Despite not having this experience, she was given a salary equivalent to scale 3, the commissioner said.

Expertise allowancxes should only be given in exceptional cases, but Muscat was given a €15,000  expertise allowance when she was at the Tourism Ministry with Bartolo, and this was later increased to  €20,000 when she was transferred to Camilleri. The report said that Camilleri's head of secretariat, Michael Buhagiar, was unable to explain why this rise was given and even denied that there had been an increase.

The role of policy consultant is a position of trust which depends on the minister, but this should not be given to a person who is unqualified. People chosen for this role should be competent and able to carry out their duties.

The commissioner also could not find any evidence that she did any consultancy work with either of the two ministers. Muscat herself had testified that her work continued to be that of a private secretary. This breached the rules, and policy consultants should serve as consultants, and not carry out secretarial work. Muscat's emai box did not show that she had carried out any such work as there were no references to policy or strategic reports in her contributions.

Muscat told the commissioner that she had not been isntructed to prepare reports, do research or give advice. Instead, she requested research from other professionals, saying that she was more of a coordinator. She admitted that she was not part of the decision-making process, with Azzopardi ruling that her role as advisor meant she was supposed to be part of this. The way her employment was arranged effectively gave her a substantial, unjustified salary rise, the report said.

Bartolo, through his lawyer Pawlu Lia, told the commissioner that his relationship with Muscat began after she started working at the Tourism Ministry, and they had agreed that it would be better if she left her role. "That would have been appropriate and correct if it were true," the commissioner noted, but instead Muscat's employment was transferred to the Gozo Ministry while she continued to effectively serve as Bartolo's assistant.

Conflicting testimonies were given by Muscat and John Grima, who was head of secretariat at the tourism ministry at the time she was transferred to the Gozo ministry. She said Grima approached her and suggested to transfer to the Gozo ministry because of her relationship with Bartolo, but he said that it had been her choice to resign. He said he had been surprised when she handed him her notice.

Gozo Ministry head of secretariat Michael Buhagiar said that the kind of work Muscat did for the ministry was tourism strategy, diving, a Comino trail project, the film industry and then fireworks festival. Moth Muscat and Minister Camilleri said she also worked on preparations for the 2022 scuttling of a ship that had run aground in Qawra four years before.

Buhagiar had very few recollections of the project and indicated it had been one under the responsibility of the Tourism Ministry, not the Gozo Ministry.

The commissioner said Muscat's emails gave a different story, and showed that she was effectively working for Minister Bartolo throughout this period while she was officially Minister Camilleri's consultant.

"Her engagement at the Gozo Ministry was only nominal and practically all her emails throughout this period are about work at the Tourism Ministry."

In some emails she was even indicated as the Tourism Ministry's contact person, the investigation found. 

She was also copied in emails sent to Minister Bartolo regarding customer care issues and in correspondence sent to Bartolo from the Office of the Prime Minister.

The only emails she received that were somewhat related to Gozo appear to have been sent automatically to all employees who for some reason had their email address connected to the Gozo Ministry.

She did not receive emails from Clint Camilleri or Michael Buhagiar, who were supposed to be her direct superiors, the commissioner observed..

Muscat told investigators that during the pandemic she would do most of her work from her home in Malta and only go to Gozo when the need arose.

She said she got permission from the Tourism and Gozo heads of secretariat to use an office at the Tourism Ministry to prepare documents, "because of logistics and to avoid wasting a lot of time".

But the commissioner observed that a person of trust generally meant enjoying the trust of the minister, not the head of secretariat, so much so that these persons have their contracts terminated immediately once a minister is removed from the job.

It is only Cabinet members who recruit persons of trust, the commissioner said.

Camilleri argued that the complaint did not allege that he had acted with favouritism in Muscat's regard, but that he had permitted her not to turn up for work. But he said he could not be blamed for this as it was not his jonb to oversee employees' attendance.

But, during a hearing in the minister's presence, his lawyer said the minister worker with Muscat, knew what she was doing and what projects she was working on. 

On this, the commissioner said that one could argue that a minister should not be held responsible for the actions of his persons of trust if he genuinely was not aware of them. But if the minister defends these actions or makes statements that do not correspond to the facts, there is no doubt that he would be shouldering personal responsibility for what happened.

Azzopardi suggested changes to the guidelines for the engagement of policy consultants. 

He said that they need to be updated because, as they stand, there is room for abuse.

Commenting on the Standards Commissioner report on Clayton Bartolo and Clint Camilleri, Arnold Cassola stated:

"Following a thorough analysis of the facts, that lasted more than two years, Commissioner for Standards, Judge Emeritus Joseph Azzopardi has confirmed my report of a breach of ethics on the part of the two ministers.

"This breach of ethics on the part of the two ministers has been clearly proven, since they abused of public funds, which were given to a non qualified consultant who, while being richly compensated as a consultant with one minister, never did any consultancy for him but instead acted as a personal secretary to another minister. 

"I now expect Prime Minister Robert Abela to lead by example on good governance and take the necessary disciplinary action against the two ministers, whilst introducing safeguards to ensure that such blatant abuses do not re-occur in the future". 

Camilleri and Bartolo react

In a post on Facebook, Minister Camilleri said that he has taken note of the report by the Commissioner for Standards, and one now waits for the outcome of the discussion within the Parliamentary Committee for Public Life.

"In the meantime, however, certain points should be clarified: The individual mentioned was engaged for a short period of about eight months, always in strict adherence to the applicable policies outlined in the Manual on Resourcing, Policies, and Procedures. At no point, in any way or manner, was the content of this manual breached. The report does not state that the individual in question did not work; on the contrary, it confirms the opposite. This is one Government, and a Ministry such as the Ministry for Gozo requires joint efforts with all other Ministries, including Tourism, as demonstrated in projects like the Tourism Strategy 2021-2030, the Diving Strategy, the film sector, and the Malta International Fireworks Festival."

Minister Bartolo also posted, and aside from a similar writeup as Minister Camilleri, also said that: "It is worth noting that the mentioned contract was terminated on December 31, 2021, and since then, the individual in question has not worked for the Government nor received any other form of remuneration from it. The report does not state that the individual did not work; it confirms the opposite. In light of all this, while I do not agree with everything written by the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life, I accept the report. If there were any instances where I fell short in some way, I humbly apologize. No one is perfect, and the only people who never make mistakes are those who do nothing. As I have done throughout my years in this position, I will remain focused on my duties to continue working for the tourism industry, which is creating prosperity for the benefit of all the Maltese and Gozitan people."

The full report may be found here