Ethics Commissioner warns Robert Abela as PM abolishes Ministerial asset declarations

The Commissioner for Standards in Public Life has written to Prime Minister Robert Abela, voicing deep concern over recent unannounced changes to the way government ministers declare their financial assets.

In a letter to Robert Abela, Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi expressed alarm that the longstanding practice of ministers filing detailed asset and income declarations – and making them publicly accessible – had effectively been abandoned.

Under a December 2025 response to the Commissioner’s requests for the 2024 declarations, Cabinet Secretary Ryan Spagnol – appointed by Abela – said ministers and other members of parliament now submit a single, streamlined form to the Speaker, eliminating a bespoke ministerial disclosure regime.

According to the Commissioner’s interpretation, cabinet members no longer disclose key information such as income or financial investments held by them or their spouses – data previously captured under the ministerial format. Such information is absent from the generic MPs’ declaration form.

“This is a setback for transparency in public life and sends a very negative message,” the Commissioner wrote, warning that the change undermined ethical safeguards around the executive branch.

The Commissioner also highlighted that none of the MPs’ or ministers’ asset declarations are currently published, meaning the public can no longer access them as they once did under established practice.

He noted that last year,  Abela had proposed publishing MPs’ declarations on a statutory timetable – a pledge that was omitted from the Cabinet Secretary’s reply.

The change comes against a backdrop of heightened scrutiny over asset disclosures by the government.

The Shift News has been at the forefront of reporting on the issue, challenging the government’s refusal to publish the 2023 cabinet declarations and lodging a Freedom of Information complaint when those requests were rebuffed – leading the Information and Data Protection Commissioner to issue an enforcement notice compelling the Office of the Prime Minister to release them.

Earlier controversial denials by Abela that the declarations were missing drew further public scrutiny after The Shift revealed neither the Speaker’s office nor the Standards Commissioner had been provided copies, despite claims by the prime minister that they were available.

Critics argue that Malta’s system falls short of OECD and Council of Europe (GRECO) recommendations, which call for thorough and publicly accessible asset declarations, including income and gifts – a benchmark the commissioner’s own correspondences have invoked.

In his damning letter, the standards commissioner also challenged the government’s announcement of plans to strengthen the code of ethics for MPs, insisting that ministers’ ethical obligations should equally be tightened.

He pointed to past reports – including a 2020 review and a 2023 OECD assessment – that argued for robust ethical frameworks covering both MPs and ministers and for stronger asset disclosure requirements.

The commissioner noted that by dropping the detailed ministerial form, all serving ministers were technically in breach of their existing ethical obligations, even though the office has no mandate to investigate cabinet decisions.