18 ministers breached ethics with Labour Party media supplement

18 ministers were found to have breached ethics after using public coffers to finance adverts that promoted their political work in the Labour Party newspaper KullĦadd.

The ethics complaint was filed by Robert Aquilina, President of the NGO Repubblika, last February, although Standards Commissioner George Hyzler began investigating the matter a few days before the complaint was put forward.

In his report,  the Standards Commissioner concluded that 18 sitting and former ministers breached the Ministerial Code of Ethics when paying for adverts on the supplement.

The ministers paid out a collective €16,700 to promote their work in the supplement, which was published two years after Robert Abela took the reigns of the Labour Party and became Prime Minister.

The supplement was intended to promote the work carried out by the Labour government under Robert Abela.

Other witnesses may be called to testify on the report before the parliamentary committee.

In his report, the Commissioner acknowledged that Ministers Aaron Farrugia and Julia Farrugia Portelli did not use their photos in the commissioned adverts, making the breach less serious compared to other cases.

He made a similar observation about the adverts paid for by Ministers Byron Camilleri, Clint Camilleri, Miriam Dalli and Anton Refalo, and ex-minister Carmelo Abela. These ministers did not have any prominent photos of themselves on the adverts.

However, the Commissioner noted that the breach was more severe in the cases of Minister Ian Borg, ex-minister Edward Zammit Lewis, and ex-parliamentary secretary Chris Agius. Hyzler said that the adverts took on a partisan nature in these adverts.

The ethics report has since been passed on to parliament’s Standards in Public Life Committee, which will discuss the report with the Commissioner next Thursday.