Prime Minister ignoring his own benchmark

If Prime Minister Robert Abela adopts the same benchmark he used when asking Justyne Caruana to resign in the last legislature, he should be asking Clayton Bartolo and Clint Camilleri to step away from Cabinet.

But Abela seems to have set his own benchmark aside and absolved the two politicians – the public apology Bartolo made is sufficient, he told us.

The two ministers were found to have given Bartolo’s girlfriend, later to become his wife, an ‘unjustified’ lucrative salary increase by engaging her as policy advisor for tourism-related matters despite not having the qualifications or expertise for the job.

Indeed, in his investigation, Standards Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi found that Amanda Muscat had never penned a report or given written advice to either of the ministers despite being appointed ‘advisor’. And despite having a new job title, she continued to work by and large as a private secretary for Bartolo even when she was transferred to the Gozo Ministry under Camilleri.

Muscat was paid very good money – she also saw her ‘expertise allowance’ increase to €20,000 from €15,000 when engaged by the Gozo Ministry – for a job she was not qualified for and which she effectively never performed.

It is evident that the new job title and the significantly improved salary Muscat was afforded was the result of her involvement with Bartolo. There was no merit in her appointment. It was simply an excuse to give her a better pay packet while allowing her to continue doing her previous work as a private secretary.

The Standards Commissioner was clear that even in positions of trust, it is crucial that the right people are chosen. Loyalty, an important quality when choosing persons of trust, should never be a substitute for competence.

Whatever work Muscat did as private secretary – arranging meetings with stakeholders, coordinating their actions, taking care of the minister’s appointment book – was not commensurate with the generous pay packet she received as a policy consultant.

An objective analysis of the facts shows that this case is not much different from the one involving former education minister Justyne Caruana before the last general election. Caruana had been censored because she engaged her boyfriend to carry out a study on the sports school when he had no qualifications to carry out the job. Indeed, the report that he produced under his name was compiled by a ministry consultant.

Caruana was eventually forced out of Cabinet in December 2021 with the Prime Minister saying it was every MP’s duty to shoulder responsibility, especially those in the executive.

By this same benchmark, Bartolo and Camilleri should shoulder responsibility for their behaviour and step down from Cabinet.

Nonetheless, the ministers have chosen to ignore Abela’s advice from 2021 and this seems fine with the Prime Minister.

Both ministers said they will wait for the outcome of the discussion in parliament’s Standard’s Committee. We all know how the discussion will end – the government MPs will say they are satisfied with the ministers’ explanations and apologies and the Opposition MPs will demand resignations. It will be up to the Speaker to deliver the final verdict unless he abstains.

Bartolo’s apology does not even begin to convey a sense of remorse. It was a simple throwaway remark to give the Prime Minister something to latch onto in his defence.

The principal takeaway from the ministers’ reactions is that life in Cabinet will continue as normal for them with no hint of political responsibility being shouldered.

Admittedly, not every misdemeanour or wrongdoing by ministers necessitates a resignation. But in this case, it was the Prime Minister himself who set a high benchmark with the Justyne Caruana case. And there was logic in doing so because it was a case of favouritism that involved abuse of public funds.

It is attitudes like these that continue to erode people’s trust in the political system. It is behaviour like this that creates an atmosphere of impunity and as recent history shows us, this can easily be abused with dire consequences.