‘Clyde ignored Evarist Bartolo’ – Education Ministry insiders

Clyde Caruana bypassed his minister, Evarist Bartolo, and took instructions directly from Joseph Muscat while overseeing the recruitment of foreign workers and establig employment policy, Education Ministry insiders revealed to The Shift.

Their accounts challenge the finance minister’s portrayal of himself as an ignored adviser whose warnings about population growth went unheeded under the disgraced former prime minister.

Figures in Bartolo’s former secretariat and Jobsplus executives said it was an open secret that Bartolo was very frustrated by Caruana’s direct dealings with Muscat, even though employment fell within Bartolo’s ministerial portfolio.

Insiders said Caruana’s appointment in 2014 to head the employment agency, subsequently renamed Jobsplus, carried a specific brief to facilitate the recruitment of cheap foreign labour, including third-country nationals.

The accounts describe Caruana bypassing Bartolo’s authority.

Paul Bonello, a consultant to Bartolo’s Education and Employment Ministry during Muscat’s first legislature between 2013 and 2017, has also publicly supported the account of Caruana’s relationship with Muscat.

Writing on social media, Bonello said Caruana’s “primary allegiance” was towards Muscat rather than Bartolo, describing this as an “open secret” within the ministry’s secretariat.

Bonello described Caruana as the “architect of importation of TCNs” and said he stated that he took instructions directly from the prime minister.

“Evidently Clyde Caruana is referring to the Prime Minister at the time, Joseph Muscat. But it appears he does not have the guts to name him,” Bonello wrote.

Caruana recently said he completed a 300-page report in 2018 anticipating pressures on housing, hospitals, schools and roads. He said the warning was ignored.

Bartolo first publicised the episode, saying somebody had told Caruana to “burn” the report.

Senior government sources told The Shift that Muscat instructed then Cabinet secretary Mario Cutajar not to place the report on Cabinet’s agenda.

Asked about instructions to ignore the report, Muscat replied: “Clyde Caruana said nothing of the sort and I am not interested in replying to your question on a Sunday afternoon.”

Muscat did not directly address the alleged instruction to Cutajar.

Caruana advocated expanded foreign recruitment in 2017 and defended recruiting another 10,000 workers in March 2019, after completing his report.

Finance minister since November 2020, he now faces questions about his responsibility for maintaining the model he helped build.

Both Evarist Bartolo and Clyde Caruana did not reply to questions by The Shift.