On May 5, Times of Malta bore a headline informing the public that Joseph Muscat is advising on a recovery plan for Malta after COVID-19. Puzzling, given all the scandals surrounding our disgraced former prime minister and his cronies; Chris Cardona (being made to resign), Konrad Mizzi (afraid to return to Malta) and Keith Schembri (disappearing from public sight).

Since the fear of having to face truth and justice drove him to resign, Joseph Muscat has been globe-trotting extensively, at times accompanied by his family. All this on his €70,000 declared savings and an annual salary that up to December was supposed to amount to little more than €63,000, with two children studying at one of the most expensive schools in Malta  and a current salary as an MP that amounts to little more than €21,000.

A recent family photo shows his wife and daughters wearing very expensive designer clothes. Given that he is still a public figure, it is legitimate to ask where he is getting the money to afford all this.

Muscat, it would seem, is promoting the very company that has pocketed millions of taxpayers’ money with his blessing and produced practically nothing in return. He allowed the inclusion of the condition that if the hospitals he peddled are taken back, Malta has to actually pay €100 million for the trouble.

COVID-19 has come as a curse to some and a blessing to others. Due to the virus, the spotlight is not on Muscat, Schembri and Mizzi and their fellow crooks, despite the revelations in court about shameful corruption under Muscat’s governance, and despite the bullying by their foreign buddies of exemplary journalists such as Caroline Muscat, the team at Times of Malta or Manwel Delia.

Is Joseph Muscat’s advisory role to Prime Minister Robert Abela a switching of roles to stir the same corrupt pot? Let us recall just a few of Muscat’s suspect actions:

Selling our hospitals and allowing them to go to rot; selling our passports indiscriminately, including to thieves and crooks; giving away public property unlawfully to so-called ‘developers’;

Making Maltese pay well above market prices for their gas and electricity, in order that he and his band, which includes leading ‘respectable’ businessmen, could pocket more money than they already have, and meanwhile, stretching Malta’s leading bank beyond its limits for their own self-interest;

Allowing Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi, who seemingly have their fingers in every dirty pie, to get away scot-free with the fact that they intended to rape the country through their private Panama companies; remember, Keith Schembri has had to drop libel suits against journalists who uncovered his dirty dealings, while Mizzi’s greed went so far as to obtain an €80,000 contract (which was probably chickenfeed for him) following Muscat’s resignation. Moreover, will we ever know who Egrant really belongs to?;

Facilitating the installation of the totally corrupt Pilatus Bank, whose owner will probably be sentenced to a prison term beyond his lifetime;

Removing capable people and appointing an army of ‘persons of trust’ who were anything but trustworthy, but served Joseph Muscat’s and his cronies’ interests;

Muzzling whistleblowers, such as Maria Efimova or Jonathan Ferris, and refusing to consider legislation that would help Maltese journalists avoid unfair and crippling SLAPP suits;

Allowing Malta’s Police Force to fester in bad leadership and corruption, preventing it thereby from keeping a vigilant eye on the goings-on emanating from Castille, but rather, permitting possible collusions between the former police commissioner and assistant police commissioner with suspected criminals;

Hindering the course of justice by:  participating in meetings concerning sensitive information about ongoing cases, particularly regarding Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination, and probably much else, that Joseph Muscat and Keith Schembri had no business to be involved in; lying during serious investigations, such as Keith Schembri’s lies about a missing phone – the very phone used to call Yorgen Fenech before the latter tried to flee Malta. What other phone calls were made from that phone, one wonders, especially since Schembri refused to give his passwords to the police, and yet, his phone number was quickly back in service; making a mockery of the recommendations by the Venice Commission to ensure true democracy and fair judgement;

Appointing friends, and friends of friends, as judges and magistrates, with the risk of seriously compromising impartiality;

Providing phantom jobs to henchmen, including to a go-between in a murder, and possibly encouraging him in his criminal deeds;

Reducing about 90,000 people to poverty levels, by abandoning the social housing sector;

We will continue to seek truth and justice until Muscat and his cronies are brought to court to answer for their actions- Vicki Ann Cremona

Sending his henchman Neville Gafà to Libya, thereby allowing the latter to negotiate a secret deal involving immigrants kept in inhuman conditions, probably sell medical visas and possibly negotiate illegal oil deals with Libyan militias;

Tolerating the corrupt deals that Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi, Karl Cini, Brian Tonna and all the rest were involved in, which have still not been properly investigated;

Directing all his energy to promote the American University of Malta, a private foreign university, instead of our own national educational institutions, such as the University of Malta, paid for by taxpayers’ money;

Allowing our country to be irremediably uglified, so that rich contractors can get richer, with no regard for the safety and protection of individual families or the beauty of our nation.

While mulling over the consequences of letting Muscat in through the back door, Abela should remember this choice points towards corruption.

He must remember that we will continue to seek truth and justice until Muscat and his cronies are brought to court to answer for their actions, and if they so deserve, be well and truly quarantined at Corradino.

Vicki Ann Cremona is president, Repubblika.