Chris Bonett guilty of abuse, breach of ethics, Commissioner finds

Transport Minister Chris Bonett breached the ministerial code of ethics by using an official government statement to launch party-political attacks against the Opposition, Standards Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi has found.

The case concerns a statement issued by Bonett’s ministry through the Department of Information last year, following criticism of the government’s transport policies by Opposition MPs Mark Anthony Sammut and Joe Giglio.

The taxpayer-funded statement accused the Nationalist Party of “political immaturity” and lacking credibility. It claimed the Opposition did not want Malta’s transport problems addressed and described Sammut and Giglio’s politics as being “dictated by third parties”.

The Standards Commissioner concluded that such attacks “should never appear” in statements issued by the government of a modern European country.

Bonett defended the statement by arguing that ministers have a duty to respond promptly to inaccurate Opposition claims and that it is impossible to separate a minister’s institutional voice from their political identity.

He also insisted that the statement addressed public policy, contained no personal insults and was intended to correct factual inaccuracies.

The commissioner rejected those arguments, pointing out that the statement neither identified the alleged inaccuracies nor corrected them.

A minister wishing to respond in partisan terms could use personal social media accounts or the political party’s communication channels, Azzopardi said. Official government communications must remain factual even when responding to partisan criticism.

The commissioner found Bonett in breach of three provisions of the ministerial code of ethics requiring ministers to separate their official and party roles, respect the political impartiality of the public service and refrain from abusing their influence over it.

Similar findings were previously made in cases involving disgraced former minister Konrad Mizzi and ministers Silvio Schembri and Miriam Dalli. The office of the Standards Commissioner repeatedly recommended that the DOI adopt a policy defining what ministries may publish through official channels.

Azzopardi said it was regrettable that the recommendation had still not been implemented and renewed his call for such a policy.

Unlike earlier cases, Bonett’s case was not closed following an apology or undertaking.

The commissioner noted that ministers had already been warned that further abuses would be treated more seriously and that the latest comparable case occurred less than a year earlier, when Bonett was already a minister.

He referred the report to parliament’s Standards Committee and recommended that it be passed to the Principal Permanent Secretary to draw up rules preventing further partisan statements through the DOI.