Prime Minister Robert Abela has been cleared of any ethical breach by the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life Joseph Azzopardi, who found no evidence of his involvement in the release of public employees to the Marigold Foundation and the National Alliance for Rare Diseases, but concluded that the two entities were granted preferential treatment and that key rules governing such releases were breached, including delayed agreements and other irregularities.

The investigation was triggered by Momentum chairperson Arnold Cassola, who asked the Commissioner in 2023 to investigate an anonymous letter which alleged that Michelle Muscat, the wife of former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, is benefitting from the use of two drivers.

The letter alleged that after the 2013 general election, two government employees were assigned as drivers to Michelle Muscat, and that after Joseph Muscat’s resignation, the same employees were assigned to the Marigold Foundation, an NGO led by Michelle, continuing to work as her drivers on an alternating day basis.

In his complaint, Cassola referred to a parliamentary reply given on March 2023 in which Prime Minister Abela said that Michelle Muscat had been given a car but does not enjoy a driver.

Cassola argued that despite the letter being anonymous, the level of detail warranted investigation, and asked the Commissioner to investigate whether Prime Minister Abela had lied in parliament.

He also requested that Joseph Muscat and Michelle Muscat be investigated over ethical breaches, arguing they were politically exposed persons because they hold diplomatic passports.

In his decision, the Commissioner said that while the Standards law precludes the office from taking cognisance of anonymous allegations, the complaint in this case was brought forward by a named complainant and therefore the legal bar did not apply.

He added, however, that anonymous origins can weaken credibility - though in this case the level of detail was considered sufficient to proceed.

The Commissioner said he could not investigate whether the Prime Minister had told the truth in parliament because that falls under the Speaker’s competence, not the Standards office.

He also said he could not investigate Joseph Muscat or Michelle Muscat because the Standards law applies only to MPs and “persons of trust” as defined in the Act, and does not extend to politically exposed persons or diplomatic passport holders.

Azzopardi noted that Joseph Muscat resigned from Parliament in October 2020, well before the complaint was filed.

The Commissioner further explained that his office could not investigate events that occurred more than one year before the complaint was made, meaning it could not investigate the allegation that government employees were assigned directly as Michelle Muscat’s drivers when Joseph Muscat was still Prime Minister.

The investigation therefore focused on the release of public employees to serve with entities led by Michelle Muscat.

The report detailed the government’s scheme under which public employees may be released to voluntary organisations with a social or charitable role whose work complements government services or aligns with government policy.

Azzopardi’s report said that the government continues paying released employees up to a maximum of salary scale 6, and the rules generally allow only one public employee per organisation, unless there are separate offices in Malta and Gozo or “exceptional” cases justified by the nature of the organisation’s project or activity - in which case an ad hoc agreement is required with the People and Standards Division within the Office of the Prime Minister.

As part of the investigation, the Commissioner wrote to the Permanent Secretary of the People and Standards Division, Joyce Cassar, who confirmed in May 2023 that Aldo Zerafa had been assigned as a logistics officer with the National Alliance for Rare Diseases Support Malta, and that Carmel Vella had been assigned as a logistics officer with the Marigold Foundation.

Cassar also said that her office had received a request from the Marigold Foundation for Vella to return to the public service and be replaced.

The report said that in January 2024, Cassar confirmed that Glen Micallef had been assigned to Marigold as a logistics officer in Vella’s place.

The Commissioner then heard testimony from Glen Micallef, Aldo Zerafa and Carmel Vella in May 2024.

According to the report, the three described working on an alternating day basis - day on, day off - despite being officially assigned to different entities.

The workday began with collecting a car and driving to Valletta, with the car belonging to Michelle Muscat and was being used for the work of the entities she led, with the vehicle kept overnight in a garage at her private residence.

The witnesses told the Commissioner that their work involved logistical support and assistance in organising activities, with driving varying but not exceeding three hours a day.

The report said that they described transport of patients, collection of medicines and transport of members of the organisations to meetings outside the office. All three denied acting as Michelle Muscat’s personal drivers, the report said.

It also said that Joyce Cassar also testified in September 2024 and provided agreements between the People and Standards Division and the Marigold Foundation (dated October 2021) and the National Alliance for Rare Diseases (dated January 2023).

At that time, Cassar said that Marigold had two public employees assigned to it, a logistics officer and an administrative officer, while the rare disease alliance had three public employees assigned to it, including Zerafa as logistics officer.

Cassar testified that the division decides on requests for more than one employee based on the organisation’s written justification and does not verify what is stated, saying the division lacks resources to monitor NGOs’ actual work.

The Commissioner’s office also examined official files from the division, and found that, from January 2020 onwards, the Marigold Foundation had two public employees assigned at the same time, but the required agreement covering two employees was only concluded in October 2021, one year and ten months later.

The Commissioner’s investigation found similar anomalies with the rare disease alliance, including delays of almost three years in concluding an agreement to cover two public employees, and a four-month delay in concluding an agreement to cover three employees once a third employee was assigned.

The report also spoke of cases which are treated as urgent, and cited correspondence in November 2022 regarding the release of an ITS employee, Alexia Gatt Spearing, to Marigold as a replacement, where the division sought to proceed urgently.

It also referenced the release of a VAT department official, Anna Mangion, to the rare disease alliance in 2018, and despite objections from her department head unless an immediate replacement was provided, the file indicated the replacement would be found “in the longer term.”

Another case involved Donna Darmanin, a health ministry employee bound by a five-year service agreement linked to a government scholarship.

The report said that the Principal Permanent Secretary reversed an initial refusal in August 2023, citing wording allowing work with “any other recognised organisation at the discretion of the Government.”

The report said that when Cassar was called again in July 2025 to explain the anomalies, documentation showed that the release of Glen Micallef was not renewed after it emerged he had been performing duties with the rare disease alliance despite being assigned to Marigold, and had been involved in internal activities of the alliance not related to its aims.

Further correspondence provided to the Commissioner also indicated that in March 2025 the division approved payment of a full salary to Natasha Deguara, an ICT executive on salary scale 5, from November 2024, despite scheme rules stating that officers on a scale higher than 6 are to be paid only up to the maximum of scale 6 while released.

The Commissioner described this concession as a breach of a mandatory rule, noting that seeking justification later did not remove the irregularity.

In his conclusions, the Commissioner said it was “without doubt” that there were occasions when rules were not followed in relation to Marigold and the Rare Disease Alliance, including assigning multiple public employees without the required agreement, and concluding agreements long after the releases had occurred.

He said that the rules detail the allowance of more than one employee only in exceptional, specially deserving cases, and require analysis and an ad hoc agreement tied to specific activity.

Instead, Azzopardi found that agreements used generic, template-style language and did not reflect any such analysis, while the division’s permanent secretary repeatedly stated that no verification of NGOs’ actual work is carried out.

The Commissioner said the absence of verification is “preoccupying” because the scheme could become a mechanism to serve individual interests rather than the public interest, and said there was scope for an inquiry by the National Audit Office into how the release scheme is being administered in the absence of checks by the People and Standards Division.

He also concluded that the urgency associated with certain releases showed clearly that Marigold and the Rare Disease Alliance were being given preferential treatment, and said the breaches were not the result of a simple administrative oversight.

However, when it came to ministerial responsibility, the Commissioner said he found no evidence of involvement by Prime Minister Abela, neither from witness testimony nor from documents examined.

He acknowledged the case has a political dimension and that political pressure might be assumed, but said suspicion alone is not enough to reach an ethics breach finding, and that some form of evidence is still required.

While clearing the Prime Minister of personal responsibility, the Commissioner said that Abela, as the minister responsible for the People and Standards Division, is obliged to ensure the division does not act preferentially going forward, and that officials are protected from improper pressure.

He said that future cases of preferential treatment in the release of public employees could form the basis of an investigation under the ministerial code of ethics provisions he cited.

The Commissioner said that copies of the report would be sent to the complainant, the Prime Minister and the Parliamentary Committee for Standards in Public Life, as well as to the Principal Permanent Secretary and the Auditor General in view of the report’s findings and recommendations, as well as being placed on the office’s website.

In reaction to the Commissioner’s report, the party Momentum said that the “secondment system” reflected a culture where political proximity translated into privileged access to state resources.

Momentum Secretary General Mark Camilleri Gambin said that the party was concerned with the findings of the report issued by the Office of the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life regarding the release of public employees to organisations linked to Michelle Muscat.

“While the report stops short of attributing direct political responsibility, it clearly identifies irregular practices, weak oversight, and preferential administrative treatment in the allocation of public employees to two organisations closely associated with Michelle Muscat,” he said in a statement.

He said that Momentum believed that the findings confirm what many citizens have long suspected: that the public service secondment system was manipulated in a dubious manner to benefit entities linked to the former Prime Minister’s family.

“The report highlights repeated breaches of established procedures; assignments of multiple public employees without timely agreements; urgent releases treated as priority cases; weak monitoring of how taxpayer-funded employees were deployed; and administrative practices that blurred lines between public service and private NGO operations,” Camilleri Gambin said.

The statement said that what the party found particularly troubling was the finding that multiple employees were assigned, even though the government scheme normally allows one public employee per NGO, unless justified by special agreements.

“Such required formal agreements were sometimes signed months or years after assignments began,” it said.

Momentum said that this case must be understood within the broader legacy of governance failures under Joseph Muscat’s administration.

“Even if no direct instruction was proven, the environment that enabled such practices reflects a culture where political proximity translated into privileged access to state resources,” it said.

The party also said that the Commissioner warned that inadequate verification mechanisms risk turning secondments into tools that serve private interests rather than the common good.

Momentum called for an immediate reform of the public service secondment system to ensure transparency, fairness, and strict compliance with rules.

It also called for the independent auditing and monitoring of all seconded public employees, the full publication of agreements and justifications for secondments to voluntary organisations, and clear safeguards to prevent conflicts of interest and political influence.

Momentum said that public resources belong to the people, not to political networks or privileged insiders.

“Malta deserves governance built on integrity, accountability, and equality before the law,” Momentum said.