The Nationalist Party said that the “Parliamentary Committee for Standards in Public Life has now also found Ministers Clayton Bartolo and Clint Camilleri guilty.”

In a statement on Thursday, the PN added that “this follows the today’s unanimous endorsement of the Commissioner for Standards’ report, which concluded that Minister Clayton Bartolo’s wife was paid for consultancy work she never carried out, with the complicity of Minister Clint Camilleri.”

The PN argued that “now that the report has been adopted, and Bartolo and Camilleri have been found guilty of breaching the Code of Ethics for Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries, Prime Minister Robert Abela has no option but to dismiss the two Ministers if they do not resign voluntarily.”

The PN stated that “since this scandal was exposed – the Prime Minister and the Ministers involved have shirked responsibility, claiming they would wait for the Committee’s conclusions.”

It went on to say that “the report by the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life – whose findings have now been endorsed by the Parliamentary Standards Committee – revealed that Minister for Tourism and Public Cleanliness Clayton Bartolo’s partner, now wife, was appointed as a consultant with a €70,000 salary despite lacking qualifications. Moreover, she did not perform the role during her tenure but continued working as the Minister’s Personal Secretary while receiving a consultant’s salary.”

For reasons unknown, Robert Abela is applying a double standard in this case,” the PN said. ” While he refuses to dismiss Clayton Bartolo and Clint Camilleri, he immediately sacked former Minister Justyne Caruana as soon as the report in her case was published, even before the Committee convened to decide whether to adopt it.”

“On two separate occasions, Abela claimed he was the one who dismissed Amanda Muscat, Minister Bartolo’s wife, contradicting Minister Clint Camilleri, whose Head of Secretariat testified under oath that he terminated her contract because her work with the Ministry was completed,” the PN said.

“People have the right to know whether Michael Buhagiar, Head of Secretariat at the Ministry for Gozo, gave false testimony under oath to protect his Minister or whether it is Prime Minister Abela who is lying to cover up the fact that all this occurred with his blessing,” stated the PN.

The Nationalist Party concluded by saying that, “it was Abela himself who approved the phantom employment of Minister Clayton Bartolo’s then-girlfriend, now wife, as a consultant and the allowances she received on top of her massive salary. Yet, in the same breath, Abela now boasts that he was the one who dismissed her.”

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