A report by the Office of the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life has confirmed what many suspected: two voluntary organisations led by Michelle Muscat, wife of former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, were granted preferential treatment in the secondment of public employees, with repeated breaches of established rules and inadequate oversight by government authorities. While the commissioner found no evidence that Prime Minister Robert Abela personally intervened, the broader findings raise troubling questions about governance, accountability and equality before the rules.

The standards governing secondments are clear. Public employees may be assigned to voluntary organisations engaged in charitable or socially complementary work, but such arrangements are regulated. Normally, only one employee may be seconded to an organisation unless exceptional circumstances justify otherwise, and formal agreements must be in place. In the cases examined by Standards Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi, those safeguards were repeatedly ignored.

Both NGOs - the Marigold Foundation and the National Alliance for Rare Diseases - were assigned two public employees without the required agreements. In one case, documentation was signed nearly two years late; in another, almost three years after the second employee had already been assigned. A third public employee was later allocated to one of the organisations, again without timely documentation. The commissioner concluded that there had been no proper assessment to justify the "exceptional" treatment afforded.

These are not minor procedural lapses. They represent systemic failures in applying rules designed to ensure fairness and transparency in the use of public funds. When exceptions are made without documented justification, the inevitable perception is that access and influence, rather than objective criteria, determine outcomes.

Testimony further indicated that logistics officers alternated shifts between the two organisations despite being formally assigned to separate entities. Although the employees denied acting as personal drivers and described legitimate duties such as transporting patients and organising activities, the commissioner warned that the arrangement illustrated how public resources could be misused in the absence of effective monitoring.

Oversight was demonstrably weak. The People and Standards Division within the Office of the Prime Minister, which administers the secondment scheme, does not verify the actual work carried out by seconded employees. It relies instead on written justifications provided by the recipient NGOs. The commissioner described this as "preoccupying" and suggested that the National Audit Office should examine the operation of the scheme.

Against this backdrop, the reaction of the NGOs is striking. They emphasised that the report found "no wrongdoing" on their part. Yet the commissioner explicitly identified breaches of the rules governing secondments and insufficient oversight by authorities. It is therefore misleading to present the findings as an exoneration.

The deeper concern is accountability. Despite confirmed breaches, no individual appears to bear responsibility. No sanctions have been announced. No resignations have followed. The rules were not observed, public resources were deployed in a manner the commissioner found irregular, and yet the system moves on unchanged.

This creates the perception of different tiers of voluntary organisations: those that must comply strictly with procedures and compete for limited support, and those that appear to receive flexibility unavailable to others. The optics are damaging. Public administration must not only be fair; it must be seen to be fair.

An investigation was triggered by a complaint from Arnold Cassola, now leading Momentum, which has called for reform of the secondment system and greater transparency. Such reforms are necessary. Agreements and justifications for secondments should be published proactively, and independent verification of work carried out should be standard practice.

Taxpayers are entitled to assurance that their money is administered without favour, regardless of who sits at the head of an organisation.