Transport Minister Joe Mizzi insists he was not involved in the recruitment process that led to his sister-in-law being employed by a department falling under his political responsibility.

Lourdes Camilleri was among 70 new full-time cleaners employed by the Public Cleansing Directorate in June.

When asked about this, Mr Mizzi insisted he had nothing to do with the recruitment process, adding: “She was selected by an evaluation board.”

Despite the considerably large civil service, the government still opted to hire new personnel to fill the new posts at the public cleansing department, in the process increasing the directorate’s wage bill from €6.6 million to €7 million a year.

Asked why the government did not redeploy workers already on its payroll, a spokeswoman for Mr Mizzi said that was not possible because a call for internal applications issued by the previous administration did not attract the required response.

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