Clayton Bartolo did not breach ethics when his ministry allowed the head of ITS to go on a free cruise but was reprimanded for failing to be transparent with investigators, a new standards commissioner report has found.

Bartolo was not involved in the decision to allow Institute of Tourism Studies (ITS) CEO Pierre Fenech to take a free cruise from a company doing business with ITS, commissioner and judge emeritus Joseph Azzopardi found.

But the approval raised concerns of potential conflicts of interest nonetheless, and Bartolo's defence was insufficient, he said. 

The former minister gave "dry" replies in his explanation and, had he been more forthcoming and transparent about his actions, the case would not have needed to be investigated, the standards tzar concluded.

Independent candidate Arnold Cassola had originally filed the complaint with the standards commissioner in September last year after The Shift News revealed the story.

The report was concluded and published on Friday.

So, what was it all about?

Last year ITS CEO Pierre Fenech, his wife and an ITS senior manager went on a five-day cruise from Ancona, an Italian city perched on the Adriatic Sea some 180 kilometres northeast of Rome.

The trip was organised and provided for free by Viking Cruises, a Swedish company in negotiations with ITS at the time to send students to be trained in Malta.

The trip raised concerns about whether it was ethical for Fenech to accept a gift from a company ITS was negotiating with, but Fenech said he obtained approval from the Tourism Ministry's permanent secretary beforehand.

During the investigation, Permanent Secretary Anthony Gatt confirmed he had approved the trip after seeing nothing wrong with it, and that Bartolo was not involved in the decision.

"God forbid we get to a point where the minister has to approve travel," he told investigators.

Bartolo copied in emails but did not intervene

The commissioner found Bartolo was copied into emails through which the trip was approved, however, but did not intervene.

Gatt said it was standard practice for CEOs to copy in ministers when asking for such approvals from permanent secretaries but explained a minister would usually only intervene in exceptional circumstances.

The trip was justified because it was a working trip and not a holiday, he said.

The trip was a 'shakedown' - "a cruise on test" - carrying many of Fenech's counterparts from other countries, all of whom were there to hold meetings and discuss collaborations, as usually happens in any other expo, he said.

It was important for ITS to establish contact with international institutions with whom to cooperate and extend its services, said Gatt. 

'Viking Saturn' is the cruise ship that took the Maltese delegation on a five-day trip between April 27 and May 2, 2023. Photo: Shutterstock

When reminded that Fenech was acting on behalf of the government, Gatt said there was no conflict of interest because the negotiations were not a competitive process as is the case with tenders.

Rather, they were bilateral negotiations aimed at training students to work on cruise liners, he said. The cruise was not a gift, but a pitch to ITS in the hope of further collaboration.

"They even held meetings," Gatt told investigators. "If you're aboard a cruise on vacation, I believe the last thing you would want is to hold meetings; [but] in this case, meetings were held."

Four meetings

Nonetheless, the standards commissioner said he remained "skeptical" about the extent of the cruise's benefit to ITS.

He found that during the five-day trip, the Maltese officials held only four meetings and attended a visit to the vessel's operations section.

The permanent secretary offered no documented details on the discussions and results of the meetings.

But the commissioner said he understood that institutions like ITS needed to establish relationships with foreign entities to expand their operations, and felt he should not judge whether this particular trip led to a conflict of interest.

He added, however, that he was concerned that the permanent secretary was too quick to decide there was no conflict of interest.

"The responsible officials should seriously consider the possibilities of conflicts of interest if such benefits are accepted, and in the spirit of transparency should give a detailed account of the reasons why they believe there was no conflict or why, despite the potential conflict, they still accepted the benefit or approved of it," the commissioner said.

What Bartolo had to say

The commissioner confirmed that then-minister Bartolo was not involved in the decision and that the worst that could be said about him was that he was aware of what was going on and could have intervened.

But he did not find him in breach of ethics.

What disconcerted the standards commissioner, rather, was Bartolo's lack of transparency in defending his actions.

In his reply to the commissioner, Bartolo said the approval was issued by the civil service and not by himself, adding the civil service did not answer to him.

The commissioner was not happy with the response.

"The minister was dry in his replies and based one of them on the false premise that the civil service does not answer to him," the commissioner concluded.

"If it were true that public service employees do not answer to ministers, then ministers would be confined to being observers and the country would be run by permanent secretaries", the report said.

"In light of such answers, the commissioner had no other option but to open a formal investigation. This is another example of the importance of transparency.

"Had Bartolo been more comprehensive in his replies, this investigation could have been avoided."