Clayton Bartolo's apology over the revelations that both he and Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri breached ethics is "sufficient", Prime Minister Robert Abela has said.

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 by the parliamentary ethics committee. 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.

This resulted in the Nationalist Party calling for the resignation or dismissal of both ministers, and also led NGO Repubblika to file a criminal complaint with the Police Commissioner for them to investigate, arguing that sections of the criminal code had been breached.

Minister Bartolo had posted on social media about the Standards Commissioner's report. "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," Bartolo said.

Asked for his reaction to the Standards Commissioner report, Prime Minister Robert Abela said "it is important to tell the facts objectively, especially in light of a complaint filed by Repubblika to the Police Commissioner. This is a case that goes back more than three years, before the 2022 general election. The person in question hasn't worked with the government for over three years. It was an employment that lasted only a few months. It is very important to note that the person in question worked. We are not speaking about, as was alleged in the Repubblika complaint, a phantom job. The Standards Commissioner excluded that completely, and confirms that the person in question worked."

He said that the only question that the Commissioner found regards a shortcoming revolved around whether the individual in question was carrying out functions at the place of work that were commensurate with the title she had. "Those are the objective facts."

He said that the Standards commissioner had the faculty to, if he felt there was a criminal shortcoming, refer the case to other authorities including the Police Commissioner, "something that he didn't do. And since he didn't do it, it means he had no thoughts in that sense."

The next phase, he said, is for the Parliamentary Committee to decide whether it will adopt the report or not. "If it adopts the report, then it will establish the kinds of sanctions or reprimand it will apply."

Regard the position of both ministers, he said that he saw "Minister Clayton Bartolo's apology, I saw the report and I feel that the apology by Clayton Bartolo, and naturally if the report is adopted and the Parliamentary Committee orders that an apology also be given, I believe it is sufficient given the circumstances of the case including in the context of there having been no breach of the Manual of Procedure."

Regarding the criminal complaint, he said that Repubblika felt that after the report it had to file a "false complaint," adding that it "implies" things that the Standards Commissioner's report excludes. He also described the tone of the complaint as "threatening".

He described the NGO as a "branch" of the Nationalist Party, which the PN is using "strategically, to try and break government ministers." He said that "intimidatory tactics" are not acceptable, and said that a complaint should never have been contemplated on that Commissioner's report.