Sacked Labour Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo compared a €120,000 taxpayer payment to British presenter David Walliams in 2022 to someone who would have a health problem and seeks the best medical specialist.

During a Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting held on Wednesday, which focused on the millions spent by Film Commissioner Johann Grech over the past years, Chairman Darren Carabott asked the former minister about the scandalous payment for a two-hour presentation at the Malta Film Awards by Walliams in 2022.

Justifying the expense as a marketing exercise, Bartolo shot back, asking Carabott: “Do you complain when you visit a medical specialist and they ask you to pay €100 for a 10-minute visit?”

Visibly stunned by the reply, Carabott told the minister in no uncertain terms that it was wrong to compare this public expense to health problems.

He also clarified that the PN disagreed with paying a presenter €120,000 for a show.

In office, Bartolo spent years trying to avoid revealing how much his Film Commissioner had paid Walliams. Following Freedom of Information requests by the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, the amount the British presenter received was revealed.

Despite the scandal, Bartolo later allowed the Film Commissioner to continue paying Walliams tens of thousands for further initiatives by the Film Commission.

Last year, during the Mediterrane Film Festival, a 10-minute promotional feature in which Walliams and Grech were the protagonists, cost taxpayers half a million euro.

Four million euro were spent on the festival in a week. Bartolo censored the Commissioner but said that Grech apologised.

During a question-and-answer session at the PAC, Bartolo tried to deflect criticism about the Film Commissioner’s extravagant spending.

While admitting that the Film Commission had no marketing plan or strategy, he said that whatever the Commissioner spent had achieved results.

“I would have stopped him if I was not seeing results. However, he used to convince me that what we were spending was worth it, and the results came,” he claimed.

Bartolo boasted that according to studies commissioned by his own ministry, while it was true that Hollywood blockbuster Gladiator II cost €50 million in tax rebates – a world record – the island got back €150 million.

He referred to a report commissioned by the Malta Tourism Authority, which fell under his ministry, stating that the island generated €3 for every €1 spent in the film industry. The conclusions drawn in the report have been questioned by those working in the film industry.

Bartolo also revealed that following the change in the film rebate scheme, Maltese local productions also started benefitting from the tax rebate.

When pressed by PN MP Claudette Buttigieg, he struggled to name these films. Later, he mentioned Castillo, whose producers complained about not getting paid, and local TV reality shows.

He did not explain why local reality shows were receiving taxpayer subsidies.