Outgoing standards commissioner George Hyzler on Thursday insisted that partisan adverts should not be financed by taxpayers.  

He was speaking during a sitting of parliament's Standards in Public Life Committee.  

The by-partisan committee is looking into Hyzler’s latest report which found that ministers had between them spent €16,700 on taxpayer-funded adverts praising themselves in a 32-page supplement of the Labour Party’s newspaper KullĦadd.  

His investigation found that 28 pages were taken up by government adverts extolling the achievements of ministries and their entities, in breach of the Standards Commissioner’s guidelines on advertising.

The commissioner, who will soon leave the post to take up a seat at the European Court of Auditors, on Thursday defended his investigation before MPs.  

Government members of the committee questioned Hyzler over whether ministers should be completely absent from adverts if they are paid for by the public, to which he gave a straight “yes”.  

The MPs, Jonathan Attard and Andy Ellul, repeatedly questioned Hyzler on this point.  

Attard, who is also Justice Minister, at one point said it was “factual” when one promo read: “Two years of Robert Abela, two yours of unprecedented work in the justice sector”.  

This drew in Opposition MP Mark Anthony Sammut who said the government members seemed to be confused about the difference between facts and propaganda. 

Hyzler drew a comparison to Italian broadcaster Rai, which, he said, regularly carries promotional material paid for by ministries.

“While the ministry may be mentioned, the minister himself will be nowhere to be seen, and that is the way it ought to be,” Hyzler said.  

Much of the questioning by the committee members focused on the guidelines that Hyzler had drawn up.  

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

He said that he had drafted the guidelines because when a similar case had been raised in the past, the lack of clear rules was flagged. 

Hyzler said that while he won’t be losing sleep over the issues with the guidelines, he would have preferred it had these been raised during the consultation phase.