Finance Minister Clyde Caruana breached ministerial ethics over a social media advert, according to a report by the standards commissioner.

The breach, described as 'minor' by standards commissioner Joseph Azzopardi, centres on a publicly funded Facebook post by the finance ministry featuring a picture of Caruana.

According to the standards commissioner’s guidelines, publicly funded government adverts should not display pictures of ministers, which are seen as a personal promotion rather than a dissemination of information by the government.

Caruana apologised for the breach and decided to refund the €99 used to design and promote the post on Facebook.

Azzopardi said the minor nature of the breach, and the fact that Caruana had apologised and refunded the cost of the advert, meant that no further action would be taken against the minister.

The investigation into the Facebook post was triggered by a complaint filed by independent candidate Arnold Cassola.

In 2021, Azzopardi’s predecessor George Hyzler published guidelines to ensure that government adverts and promotional material are factually correct. 

According to the guidelines, state adverts and promotional material produced by the government or public entities should not include partisan content. 

Pictures of ministers, or even their names featuring in government adverts, will see them fall foul of the new guidelines. 

Leaflets or other documents other than adverts and advertorials may include content that refers to the minister, as long as it is "strictly limited" and contributes to the legitimate purposes of the document. 

The standards commissioner said government-sponsored publications should indicate that they are publicly funded for the sake of transparency, and ministers should direct public funds to the media for advertising according to fair and objective criteria. 

These guidelines specify that they do not cover all situations that might arise, and matters not covered by the guidelines will continue to be governed by the ministerial code of ethics.

The advertising guidelines were drafted by the commissioner after he found that a €7,000 advertising campaign prominently featuring OPM minister Carmelo Abela did not contain any “information of value” to the public and was intended to boost the minister’s image.