Robert Abela gave Amanda Muscat a 30% discount on what she should pay back

Prime Minister Robert Abela gave former minister Clayton Bartolo’s wife Amanda Muscat a discount of at least 30% on the amount she owed taxpayers for her irregular employment.

According to calculations made by The Shift based on Amanda Muscat’s three government contracts, published in the Standards Commissioner’s report, the former minister’s wife got paid as a consultant for 13 months even though she never worked as a consultant but continued performing the role of her husband’s private secretary.

This means that through two fake contracts as a consultant and a person of trust, first with Clayton Bartolo and then with Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri, Muscat was paid an extra €23,504, or almost €2,000 additional per month.

In her role as Tourism Ministry advisor, while she was dating the minister in an extramarital affair, Muscat’s salary was bumped by an extra €1,512 per month, totalling €7,560 in additional payments for a role she did not do.

When moved to the Gozo Ministry in the wake of the scandal and censure of former minister Justyne Caruana employing her boyfriend Daniel Bogdanovic, her income was increased by €1,993 monthly compared to her secretarial role, while that was exactly what she was still doing, according to the Standards Commissioner’s report.

Prime Minister Robert Abela spent weeks defending Clayton Bartolo, only to turn against him a few days ago. Muscat was ordered to refund the extra payments she received through the two fake contracts.

Using Principal Permanent Secretary Tony Sultana to estimate the value of what she received in extra payments, Muscat was asked to pay back only €16,407.

Somehow, Sultana got his workings wrong by about 30%.

In correspondence sent to Speaker Anglu Farrugia, Sultana did not explain how he came up with his €16,407 refund. No workings of his calculations were presented.

The three contracts given to Amanda Muscat show that while the difference in the basic pay between that of a private secretary and a consultant may not be huge, Muscat’s major boost in her income derived from the granting of an expertise allowance, which is supposed to be given only in exceptional circumstances when accompanied by qualifications.

Despite having just two A levels and limited experience, Muscat was given a €15,000-a-year expertise allowance when at the tourism ministry, which increased to €20,000 when switched to the fake consultancy contract with Minister Clint Camilleri.

In both cases, Robert Abela’s office approved the expertise allowance to which Muscat was not entitled.