Nationalist MP Mark Anthony Sammut was left dissatisfied with Standards Committee decisions about MPs Clayton Bartolo and Clint Camilleri on Wednesday, saying the two merited tougher sanctions. 

But Sammut's PL counterpart and fellow committee member Jonathan Attard said the sanctions given to the two MPs were appropriate. 

Parliament's Standards Committee, which includes Sammut and Attard, decided to admonish Clint Camilleri and Clayton Bartolo on Wednesday. 

The committee also resolved that Bartolo must formally apologise in parliament and refund the excess money his wife earned as a fake consultant. 

Sammut, a PN member of the committee, was speaking as he left parliament after the committee made its decisions. 

"There should have been more severe sanctions for such severe shortcomings. The minister's wife received a salary for work she was not qualified for and did not do," Sammut said. 

Sammut said Camilleri, who is Gozo Minister, should return all the money his ministry gave to Muscat because she "did no work, sent no emails, did not attend work and did not give any advice to the Gozo ministry".

The two PN MPs proposed that sanction during the committee meeting on Wednesday morning, but were voted down by the government's two committee members and the speaker's casting vote. 

They were also voted down when they proposed that Camilleri should formally apologise to parliament, be suspended from the House and resign as minister. 

"Instead of apologising, Camilleri pointed the finger at the Manual [of resourcing, policies and procedures, which regulates the hiring of ministerial consultants]," he said. "As if you needed a manual to tell you that your consultants should do their work and be qualified," Sammut said.

Sammut noted that Camilleri breached manual provisions when he gave Muscat an expertise allowance which, according to the manual, should only be given in "exceptional circumstances". 

Sammut said that Camilleri's shortcomings were worse than those Bartolo, who was sacked as tourism minister on Tuesday after Times of Malta asked questions about him facing an anti-money laundering probe over separate and unrelated payments to his wife. 

Muscat did no work at all at Camilleri's Gozo ministry, Sammut noted. 

"To safeguard the standards in this country, the prime minister should ask Camilleri to resign, and if he doesn't do so, he should be removed," Sammut said. 

Sammut was standing beside fellow committee member and PN MP Ryan Callus.

Callus said that only some of the money wrongly given to Muscat was returned by the Standards' Committee decision on Wednesday. 

"The money she was given when employed as a Gozo ministry consultant has not been recovered," he said. 

Asked to explain his reasoning, given that Muscat continued to perform secretarial work for the government while ostensibly paid as a consultant, Callus said: 

"Muscat was transferred to Gozo after she started a relationship (with Bartolo), so she couldn't have done any work for minister Clayton Bartolo as a secretary when she was already in a relationship". 

Sammut said he feared this scandal was not an isolated incident, but rather just the only one that came to light. 

"Whenever we ask parliamentary questions about who the appointed consultants are for the ministers, they always say that everything is done according to the manual. If this is the way they appoint people, we have a lot to worry about," Sammut said.

Camilleri's actions do not merit a resignation- Jonathan Attard

PL MP and Standard's Committee member Jonathan Attard also gave his reaction to the sanctions. 

He said admonishment was an appropriate punishment for Camilleri. 

"The decision was based on the fact that Camilleri recognised the report and the spirit of its conclusions". 

Attard added that Camilleri has shown motivation to work as a member of the government so that the employment manual is revised according to the conclusions of the Standards Commissioner. 

Asked if Camilleri should resign, Attard said that the conclusions of the report did go to the "extremities" that merit a resignation. 

Standing beside fellow PL committee member Andy Ellul, Attard said that the Committee has shown that it takes its job seriously. 

The committee and office of the standards commissioner would not even exist were it not for the "courageous decisions" of a PL government to introduce them into law, he said.