Caruana unfit for public life, must be removed from minister, PN says

The Nationalist Party has called on education minister Justyne Caruana to immediately publish a Standards Commissioner’s report into an alleged breach of ethics, despite this being technically impossible for her to do.

The reports of the Standards Commissioner are never made available to the person under investigation, because these are handed only to the Speaker of the House.

The Standards Commissioner is believed to have found that Caruana breached ethics by assigning a €5,000 a month contract to her boyfriend and former footballer Daniel Bogdanović.

The Commissioner does not circulate any case reports to the complainant or the person under investigation, but only to the Standards Committee. “It is for the Committee to decide on subsequent circulation of the report. Its normal practice is to release the report to the public rather than to circulate it privately to any person.”

This means that the report is only in the hands of Speaker and Committee head Anglu Farrugia. Caruana and the complainants, Bogdanovic’s ex-wife and Arnold Cassola should not have access to it, unless publicly circulated.

In comments to MaltaToday, the PN acknowledged the wrong wording was used and said the statement should have called on Caruana to ask for the report to be published, and not to publish it herself.

The PN stressed that the sooner the report is published and action is taken against Caruana, the sooner the education sector can be allowed to move on. “Malta needs an education minister who prioritises better pay for teachers, not €5,000-a-month jobs for their boyfriends,” PN said. 

“This scandal has proven Caruana unfit for public life, so if Abela really believes in raising standards, he should immediately remove her from his parliamentary group. By his own low standards – as in the case of Rosianne Cutajar – Abela should at the very least remove Caruana’s portfolio.”