A standards investigation into a €5,000-a-month contract Education Minister Justyne Caruana gave to close associate Daniel Bogdanovic has found ethics were breached.  

Standards Commissioner George Hyzler handed a copy of his investigation to parliamentary speaker Anġlu Farrugia on Friday, Times of Malta has confirmed.

When a report is not published by the Standards Commissioner and is instead passed to the Speaker, it means that the report has concluded that there has been a prima facie breach of the ethics code.

Hyzler had been asked to investigate the matter by independent electoral candidate Arnold Cassola who confirmed when contacted that he had been informed of the development on Friday afternoon. 

In his request, Cassola claimed Bogdanovic was in a romantic relationship with the minister and had been handed a lucrative contract.

Bogdanovic was given a €15,000 contract by direct order to carry out a three-month survey of sports education curricula in state schools.

Soon after the contract was exposed by the media, Prime Minister Robert Abela said he had rescinded the contract once he found out about it.

In a statement, the Nationalist Party said Caruana should resign and if not, Abela should remove her as minister. The PN said the minister should be "leading by example" and not handing out such contracts.