Clayton Bartolo does not know that when he is in a hole, he should stop digging.
Apparently, for him it is not enough to find himself in hot water for giving his girlfriend, now wife, Amanda Muscat a job for which she was not qualified, and for which she was paid nearly €70,000 with the complicity of Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri.
The Tourism Minister put his foot in it once again, in the same way that he did when he said he can’t stand a Nationalist MP and wore a Manchester United jacket when they played against a team from his electoral district. On those two occasions, Bartolo had apologised too.
When questioned by journalists on the sidelines of an MHRA event on tourism a few days ago, Clayton “I’m sorry” Bartolo said that life is not just about “diplomas and degrees”.
In one half sentence, Bartolo threw out the government’s education strategy and efforts down the toilet. For that phrase, on its own, Bartolo should be dismissed.
The government built its budget for 2025 on the word “quality”. In education terms, it means that people should strive to obtain better qualifications and skills to help the country move away from labour-intensive industry to one that is more value-added. That same government has a minister for whom diplomas and degrees are secondary.
It’s not important to study and get qualifications, Bartolo implied. What is important is to get close to a minister; marry him too, perhaps. That is what you need to get a good job.
The timing of the comment could not have been worse, too. Hundreds of students are graduating from the University of Malta and the Malta College for the Arts, Science and Technology. What Bartolo was telling these youngsters who spent the last years of their life attending lectures and compiling theses that all they did was not really necessary, if they had good connections. No wonder that some of them mocked him in their traditional “buscade” to celebrate their academic achievement – we burnt ourselves out for many years but we will not get the money Clayton’s wife did, they said, in cruder terms.
The Education Minister, Clifton Grima, has remained publicly silent on what Bartolo said. We just hope that he was furious enough to have at least called Bartolo to tell him off. But, given how Labour protects its own even when they commit the worst of mistakes, we have serious doubts that such an exchange took place.
Formal education, and the attainment of qualifications, remains – or should remain – fundamental in our system. When the Labour Party was elected to power in 2013, one of its mantras was that people could still work with Labour even if they did not necessarily vote PL – “tista’ ma taqbilx maghna, imma tista’ tahdem maghna” was a phrase commonly used by then leader Joseph Muscat as he insisted that a Labour government would me meritocratic in its approach.
Soon enough, it became clear that these words were nothing but an electoral ploy as, time and again, the Labour government showed that it did not keep its word. Favouritism and nepotism quickly ousted meritocracy from Labour’s vocabulary. And what happened in the Amanda Muscat case is just one of the examples.
Bartolo insists that there was no fraud, because the word is not mentioned in the Standards Commissioner’s report. What, then, would you call it? If there had been no wrongdoing, why is the Prime Minister boasting that he was the one who terminated Muscat’s contract?
Bartolo did get his rebuke from no fewer than 16 organisations of professionals, who felt disturbed by his comments diminishing the importance of furthering one’s education and obtaining qualifications.
The Malta Federation of Professional Associations this week called for a meritocratic framework by which policy advisors and consultants to decision-makers (including politicians like Clayton “I’m sorry” Bartolo) should have the necessary academic qualifications to fulfil their role. Education forms the foundational building block of all professions, it insisted, saying that it has frequently expressed concerns regarding declining standards and questionable hiring practices, including those of persons of trust as consultants to ministers.
Bartolo’s comments, the federation added, “undermine and discredit the need for students to pursue academic education to attain qualifications in the form of diplomas and degrees,” and for professionals in all areas of practice to strive to continue their development in the best interests of the society they serve.
Another chapter in the saga was written last Thursday when Parliament’s Standards Committee endorsed the Standard Commissioner’s report. Yet another one will be written on Wednesday when it holds another meeting allowing the two ministers to make their submissions.
In other, more serious countries, the matter would have already been closed with the ministers’ resignation or dismissal.
But this is Malta.