Cassola files standards complaint over Transport Minister’s bus route promotional video

Momentum leader Arnold Cassola has reported Transport Minister Chris Bonett over what he claims is a breach of ethics in the publishing of a promotional video on new bus routes.

“Instead of the video being broadcast on the website of the Ministry of Transport, in accordance with the rules set by Commissioner Hyzler and repeatedly reiterated by you, this video was broadcast directly on the Facebook of Minister Chris Bonett,” Cassola stated in his report.

The video in question promotes the addition of 400 new bus trips across Malta, in government’s renewed effort to improve the country’s public transport service. The video was uploaded to the minister’s personal Facebook page on 17 April.

Promotion material related to the new initiative is present on the official ministry Facebook page Infrastruttura, but the video in question was not uploaded to it at the time Cassola’s report was filed.

“Undoubtedly, a positive and important initiative to encourage drivers to leave the private car at home,” the Momentum leader said in his report. “However, even in such a positive initiative, members of the government must continue to assert their arrogance.”

“At the time of writing, this video is neither on the Ministry's website, nor on the Transport Malta website nor on the Malta Public Transport website,” Cassola’s report stated.

In 2019, the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life had concluded that the use of public resources to maintain a minister’s personal Facebook page or to produce material for that page represents an abuse of public funds.

Former standards czar George Hyzler came to the conclusion after considering a complaint by the Nationalist MP Karol Aquilina against former minister Konrad Mizzi, who was tourism minister when the complaint was made. The complaint concerned partisan political content in a Facebook page which appeared to be an official page administered by the Ministry for Tourism.

Hyzler said a clear distinction should be maintained between a minister’s personal channels of communication and the official channels of ministries or departments of government, and only the latter should be maintained using public resources.

“Apart from the violation of the rules, this is nothing more than an act of defiance by the said Minister towards the authority of the Commissioner of standards,” Cassola said.