Ramon Deguara is the director of Cleansing Services.

A civil service director within the Transport Ministry interviewed and recommended for government recruitment his own brother-in-law without informing anyone about the family connection, The Sunday Times of Malta has learnt.

Ramon Deguara, director of the government’s cleansing services, interviewed Joseph Schembri – his wife’s brother – for a cleaner’s job within the civil service.

Mr Schembri was one of the 70 new government cleaners employed from among 1,700 interviewed.

Contacted by this newspaper, Mr Deguara said: “We interviewed a total of 1,700 people according to a list provided to us by the Employment and Training Corporation.”

Asked specifically if he had interviewed and recruited his brother-in-law, Mr Deguara failed to reply.

He also declined to comment when asked whether he had informed the other members of the selection board about the family connection.

On his part, Transport Minister Joe Mizzi – directly responsible for the department – said he would be investigating the matter.

“Mr Mizzi was not aware about these allegations as he was not involved in the interviewing process,” a spokeswoman said.

The recruitment process of some 70 new cleaners within Mr Mizzi’s ministry made headlines recently when it was revealed that one of the cleaners recruited, Lourdes Camilleri, happened to be the minister’s sister-in-law.

However, Mr Mizzi had denied any involvement in the recruitment of his relative as he said he was not directly involved in the recruitment process.

Recognising that Ms Camilleri had been given a government job, he said everything done was above board.