Education Minister Justyne Caruana breached MPs ethics and standards by providing her boyfriend, Daniel Bogdanovic, with a dubious €5,000 a month direct order for work done with the ministry. 

Lovin Malta is informed that the Commissioner for Standards has concluded his investigation into the controversial contract and has passed it on to the speaker for consideration given that Caruana committed certain breaches. 

In March, the Shift News s revealed that Caruana had granted Bogdanovic, her boyfriend,  a three-month contract worth €15,000 to visit government schools and draft recommendations on how to improve the national sports school’s ability to produce elite athletes. The Education Ministry had denied the claims just a month before.

Bogdanovic was an elite athlete in his own right, playing for the likes of Barnsley, Sheffield United and Blackpool in his prime. However, his contract with the Education Ministry raised eyebrows given his lack of pedagogical qualifications and his personal relationship with the Minister. 

Caruana was hospitalised soon after the initial reports, following claims of tensions within the ministry due to the revelations.

Prime Minister Robert Abela said he scrapped the controversial contact “as soon as [he] found out about it”. However, the government gazette suggests that Bogdanovic was still paid. 

Bogdanovic has continued working within the Ministry since the initial revelations, with sources detailing how the pair have been seen together in and around the ministerial building, working on the same floor. They have even accompanied one another to school visits. 

He is now Caruana’s partner after she separated from former Assistant Commissioner Silvio Valletta.

Caruana was reinstated to the Cabinet in November 2020 following a reshuffle. She had returned after being ousted at the start of the year following her now-estranged husband’s links to the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. 

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