With ministers Clayton Bartolo and Clint Camilleri clinging to their cabinet seats despite mounting pressure to resign, Robert Abela came to their aid, telling the state broadcaster that Bartolo’s apology over the matter was “sufficient”.

In what can only be described as an unhappy coincidence, Abela was speaking on video against the backdrop of a football stadium, once the stomping ground of former footballer Daniel Bogdanovic, whose bogus €15,000 contract saw Justyne Caruana lose her cabinet job in a strikingly similar case.

Caruana, then education minister, was forced to step down after a standards commissioner report found that she had handed her partner Bogdanovic a three-month €15,000 contract to draft a report about the National Sports School, a job which was actually carried out by fellow consultant Paul Debattista.

Caruana later took the matter to court, challenging the standard commissioner’s “unfettered discretion” in the investigation.

Meanwhile, Amanda Muscat, Clayton Bartolo’s now-wife, was promoted from private secretary to government consultant on a handsome €68,000 pay packet.

But, unlike Caruana, both Bartolo and Camilleri are resisting calls to step down.

Hoping to pre-empt the parallel between the two cases, Abela told TVM that this was “different than any other case that came before” because in this instance there was “no breach” of the government’s recruitment procedures.

But dig a little deeper and the parallels are more striking than Abela is letting on.

Both cases took place around the same time, with Daniel Bogdanovic’s (right) fateful contract dating back to the early months of 2021, just months after Amanda Muscat (left) was first made policy consultant in November 2020.

Muscat and Bogdanovic both in over their heads

Both cases took place around the same time, with Bogdanovic’s fateful contract dating back to the early months of 2021, just months after Muscat was first made policy consultant in November 2020.  

More pertinently, both were in over their heads, the standards commissioner concluded.

Bogdanovic was “neither qualified nor competent to fulfil” the task he had been assigned, while Muscat showed a “lack of qualifications or experience” but was still given a €20,000 expertise allowance.

In fact, neither Bogdanovic nor Muscat actually carried out the work they were meant to do, the standards commissioner concluded, although they did do work deserving of a much lower pay grade.

Covering their tracks

Finding themselves under the spotlight, both cases resulted in a desperate scramble to cover their tracks and bend the truth.

Caruana, trying to explain the involvement of Debattista in the drafting of the report, drew on the unlikely metaphor of a supervisor helping a student with their thesis.

“The supervisor does not write the thesis for the student,” came the commissioner’s sardonic reply.

There was “a concerted effort to hide Bogdanovic’s incompetence” from his investigation, the commissioner added.

It is inconceivable for a person of trust to have been engaged without the minister’s blessing at the very least- Standards Commissioner

Meanwhile, the commissioner chastised Bartolo and Camilleri for making “statements that do not correspond with the facts” when defending their actions.

Both ministers tried to shift the blame to their respective heads of the secretariat, saying they were responsible for Muscat’s engagement and the supervision of her work.

This may be true on paper, the commissioner said, but it is “inconceivable” for a person of trust to have been engaged without the minister’s blessing at the very least.

Robert Abela insisted that Bartolo and Camilleri’s case was different from those that came before it. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Shifting the goalposts

Abela’s initial reaction to the report also elicits a sense of déjà vu.

Caruana’s case was different from cases before it, Abela had said when first confronted over the matter back in 2021, referring to a similarly damning ethics report that spurred the resignation of parliamentary secretary Rosianne Cutajar.

Resisting calls to sack Caruana, Abela had said that there was a “clear difference” between the two cases. “In Rosianne Cutajar’s case there was the involvement of Yorgen Fenech, in this case there isn’t,” Abela had said.

A week later, Caruana was out of a job, with Abela having accepted her resignation from cabinet.

Abela struck a similar tone this week, once again insisting that Bartolo and Camilleri’s case was different from those that came before it, with the only shortcoming this time around being “whether (Muscat’s) work matched her role”.

He was quick to argue that the commissioner hadn’t referred the matter to the police for criminal investigation, something which was recommended in Caruana’s case.