Clayton Bartolo believes those calling for him to resign as a minister are basing those calls on political “spin”.
“The PN is saying there is fraud, but it is not mentioned anywhere in the standards report. This is spin intended to create misinformation about the report and to fabricate a story from it,” Bartolo said
“I am not hard-headed or arrogant (kiesaħ), even though there are those who try to depict me in that way. I apologised and I am sorry if I fell short in that way (ethically). But those asking for my resignation are doing so over legal issues,” the tourism minister said.
Bartolo and fellow minister Clint Camilleri were found to have abused their power by parliament’s standards commissioner, in relation to a €68,000-a-year job given to Bartolo’s then-girlfriend, who he subsequently married.
Amanda Muscat, who previously served as Bartolo’s secretary, was given a €62,000-a-year job as a policy consultant in Bartolo’s ministry and later transferred to Camilleri’s ministry, getting a pay bump. However, the standards commissioner only found evidence of her doing secretarial work and said Muscat was unqualified to serve as a consultant.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Robert Abela said Bartolo's conditional apology – “everyone makes mistakes,” the minister said - was sufficient. He said Bartolo and Gozo minister Clint Camilleri will continue in their ministerial roles.
In his report, Standards Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi found that Muscat was made a policy consultant despite not having the necessary qualifications or any significant experience in tourism.
He found that Muscat did not perform consultancy work and largely continued to work as Bartolo's private secretary but on a much higher consultant’s pay, even when she was, on paper, employed with Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri.
On Friday, Bartolo echoed what Camilleri had said earlier in the day, arguing that Muscat’s appointments did not break the government’s manual on hiring person of trust.
“The Manual was not broken at any point, not in the way she was recruited or in her pay, because there are no criteria on how one sets the salary of a person being appointed,” Bartolo said before he entered his constituency office in Mellieħa.
The commissioner concluded that the manual needs to be revised but also noted that Muscat was given a €20,000-a-year “expertise allowance” that the rules state should only be given in “exceptional cases” to consultants with specialised skills.
Asked if he felt that Muscat deserved a salary that was higher than a minister’s, Bartolo said:
“We cannot just judge someone’s worth based only on diplomas and degrees; we have to look at the work that was done.”
“Someone’s output is what determines if the pay is justified to a great extent,” he said. “The public knows what was done, and the witnesses in the report show that work was done.”