A defiant Clint Camilleri has insisted he did nothing wrong in the hiring of his ministerial colleague's girlfriend as a €68,000-a-year consultant despite being found in breach of ethics.

The Gozo minister doubled down on his defence, telling Times of Malta he followed all established recruitment procedures. 

“The recruitment was in line with the Manual on Resourcing," he said. "They followed procedure to the letter, and the recruitment had all the necessary approvals. It was to the letter."

Camilleri and Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo have faced calls to resign over giving high-paying government consultancy roles to Bartolo’s partner, now wife, Amanda Muscat.

The standards report found that she didn't have the required qualifications for the roles and could not find evidence that she did any consultancy work with either ministry. 

Times of Malta asked the Gozo minister if he would resign over the findings that he abused his power and breached ministerial ethics. He repeated his defence that all procedures had been followed. 

The report found that Muscat was first promoted from Bartolo’s personal assistant to his consultant with a generously beefed-up salary of almost €62,000 in 2020 and, again, with an even higher salary of €68,000, with Camilleri in 2021.

She 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 Camilleri.

Clayton Bartolo with Amanda Muscat on their wedding day. Photo: Facebook

The Standards Commissioner criticised a lack of safeguards within the government’s Manual on Resourcing Policies and Procedures when employing policy consultants 

“The manual does not include any criteria for the selection of policy consultants or for determining their salaries and allowances,” the report says. 

Asked if he felt he did anything wrong or ethically ambiguous when he gave Amanda Muscat a salary that was higher than that of a minister, Camilleri again pointed out that the recruitment procedure was in line with the resourcing manual. 

“I followed the procedures that we are obliged to follow,” Camilleri said. 

The relevant section of the manual in question provides guidelines on how ministers can employ persons of trust within their private secretariat. 

In his report, the standards commissioner noted that Muscat was given the highest possible salary for a consultant, as well as an additional €20,000-a-year "expertise allowance" reserved for exceptional cases involving particular experts. 

What the report concluded about Muscat's appointment and the Manual on Resourcing Policies and Procedures.

PM: Apology is 'sufficient'

Tourism Minister Bartolo, who was further found to have been motivated by personal gain in hiring his then-girlfriend, issued a conditional apology after the report was published on Thursday.

The prime minister has said the apology is "sufficient" and both men will continue in their roles. 

The Gozo minister said a Standards Commissioner report, which eventually forced former PL Minister Justyne Caruana to resign, was different from this case. 

Justyne Caruana resigned as Education Minister in 2021 following a Standards Commissioner report on a job-for-a-friend scandal. 

The Standards Commissioner found that Caruana awarded Daniel Bogdanovic a three-month, €15,000 contract. 

Justyne Caruana was forced out after a similar standards investigation found her in breach of ethics. File photo: Times of Malta

PN reiterates calls for resignations

PN shadow ministers Rebekah Borg and Darren Carabott reiterated the PN’s call for Ministers Clayton Bartolo and Clint Camilleri to resign in the wake of a damning ethics report published on Thursday.

Addressing a news conference on Friday, Borg and Carabott described the ministers’ actions as a case of “fraud,” insisting that an apology for their actions would not suffice.

“Will Clayton Bartolo and his wife be returning the money they stole from the public?” Borg asked. “People don’t want an apology; they want accountability,” she said.

Meanwhile, Carabott called on the police to “do their duty” by investigating the case.

“These are the people that the government chose to scrutinise public accounts,” Carabott added, pointing to Bartolo’s role as a government representative on the Public Accounts Committee.