Tourism Minster Clayton Bartolo’s partner Amanda Muscat has taken exception to criticism levelled at the minister for sporting a Manchester United jacket at a women’s football friendly against Birkirkara FC, a team from his constituency.

She has inadvertently exposed herself as wheeling and dealing with Bartolo’s constituents in yet more instances of the widespread and growing jobs-for-votes practice.

Taking to social media to address the furore over Bartolo’s apparent insult to Birkirkara FC, Muscat reminded one of the minister’s critics that it had been only thanks to her personal intervention that he now has a government job.

Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo’s offending Facebook post, which shows him sporting a Manchester United jacket at Birkirkara FC.

In comments posted openly on social media revealing political patronage, Muscat responded to one commentator by reminding him that he and his partner had turned to her for government employment.

She even went so far as to post a private message she sent to one of Bartolo’s constituents, telling him she was also checking about a job for his partner.

Addressing the constituent as “qalbi” (dear), Muscat informed him the jobs she was looking at for him did not provide the same basic pay as his current employment but that the salary would “increase with overtime and shift allowances”.

Muscat has no official role or office within the Tourism Ministry and Bartolo insists that she no longer works for him since the pair became an item. Muscat had been Bartolo’s private secretary when he was a Parliamentary Secretary.

Sources at the ministry, however, insist Muscat is a regular at Bartolo’s office and that she meets his constituents in various localities.

In 2021, just as the scandal about former minister Justyne Caruana and her love interest Daniel Bogdanovic was unfolding, Bartolo hurriedly arranged for Muscat to be transferred from his ministry and onto the books of his Cabinet colleague Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri in order to avoid a Standards Commissioner investigation.

The Shift had revealed that although Muscat was being paid by the Gozo Ministry, she was never seen there and was instead regularly spotted at Bartolo’s office in Valletta or tending to his constituents in Mellieħa.

The Shift had also revealed how while she was supposed to be on duty in Gozo, Muscat was erstwhile busy setting up a birthday bash at Bartolo’s ministerial office, which had been converted into a mini-Manchester United football pitch for the special occasion.