The report from the Commissioner of Standards in Public Life on Clayton Bartolo's then girlfriend, Amanda Muscat, and the report of the Auditor General on the Film Commission were published in the space of a couple of days. They throw sufficient light on the workings of the Minister for Tourism and his underlings to conclude that Minister Clayton Bartolo is not fit for purpose.

The issues raised in these reports are abuse of (political) power and lack of accountability.

The Prime Minister has declared that he himself directly sacked Amanda Muscat, the beneficiary of the abuse. However, he was satisfied with a simple "sorry" from those who exercised (political) power in an abusive manner.

The abusive appointment of Minister Clayton Bartolo's then girlfriend as a consultant at the Gozo Ministry (while still at the Tourism Ministry), courtesy of fellow Minister Clint Camilleri follows the phantom job of Rosianne Cutajar, at the Institute for Tourism Studies (ITS). Earlier we had the abusive direct order by the other Gozitan Minister, Justyne Caruana, to her boyfriend Daniel Bogdanovic which led to the resignation of the Honourable Minister.

All cases were exposed in the press and subsequently confirmed after investigations by the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life and the Auditor General.  Reluctantly, Robert Abela forced the resignation of Rosianne Cutajar and Justyne Caruana. Subsequently he sought the rehabilitation of both of them. Cutajar was readmitted into the Labour Party parliamentary group. Shedding crocodile tears, Robert Abela also offered the olive branch to Justyne Caruana by suggesting that she contests the EU Parliament elections. Caruana apparently declined the offer!

It is suggested that the rehabilitation of Rosianne Cutajar and the attempt to reach out to Justyne Caruana by Robert Abela was a Machiavellian manoeuvre specifically intended to create the conditions whereby Ministers Clayton Bartolo and Clint Camilleri would be eventually shielded from having to resign from office. A sorry, said Abela, is sufficient atonement for their ethical errors.

The Auditor General, this week, also released the report of his investigation into the operation of the Film Commission, another political responsibility of Clayton Bartolo.

Entitled "Evaluating the role of the Malta Film Commission in promoting the Maltese film industry", the Auditor General's report queries the lack of an audit trail, the general lack of adequate documentation, so essential to ensuring that public monies are well spent.  The lack of record keeping makes accountability difficult. In fact, the Auditor General emphasises that he was not in a position to carry out a value for money exercise on the monies spent by the Film Commission due to a lack of adequate documentation held by the Commission. This situation, concludes the Auditor General, raises concerns relating to accountability and transparency related to provenance, spending and administration of public funds. (vide page 20 of the Auditor General's report).

The Tourism Minister, Clayton Bartolo, is politically responsible for this too. The lack of adequate governance within the Film Commission makes it much more difficult to ascertain whether public funds were spent as directed by Parliament. A lack of documentation inevitably leads to more questions as to how public funds were really spent. This gives more credibility to the various allegations surrounding the extravagant spending by the Film Commission.

It is the political responsibility of the Minister of Tourism to ensure that the activities of the Film Commission are both transparent and accountable, which so far, they are not.

Clearly Minister Clayton Bartolo, a certified public accountant and auditor by profession, is more than aware of the weak governance structure at the Film Commission and he has done nothing about it. Throughout his tenure as Minister for Tourism he has been tolerating it. This speaks volumes on his competence as a Minister.  In Cabinet, he outshines them all.

An architect and civil engineer, the author is a former Chairperson of ADPD-The Green Party in Malta.  [email protected] ,   http://carmelcacopardo.wordpress.com