The Office of the Prime Minister has refused to condemn comments made on Facebook by its special envoy Joe Grima, who launched an attack on President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca for urging migrant integration.
The former tourism minister wrote on his Facebook wall: “Her Excellency has become as predictable as the morning sun on an August day and as boring as a threadbare joke.
“Malta’s President has consigned her presidency to absolute and total irrelevance when she speaks about immigration and integration of the Maltese with African and Eastern European immigrants,” he added.
However, the Office of the Prime Minister brushed off Mr Grima’s comments, even though he is the Prime Minister’s special envoy to the World Tourism Organisation.
Asked whether his behaviour, as a public official, was acceptable and whether the government was considering taking further action, a spokesman said the government did not control what people said on their personal Facebook accounts.
“What Joe Grima said is his personal opinion,” the spokesman said.
Reacting on his Facebook wall this morning, Mr Grima criticised Times of Malta "and its gang of Nationalist bedfellows" for doing their utmost to put in a bad light all those who were associated with the present government and who were considered valid.
Times of Malta, he said, wanted these people to live like sheep, hidden and silent, afraid they might be mentioned in their paper and lose who knows what the paper thought they might lose.
Mr Grima said he was currently only focused on his work at the UNWTO.
"I was never a sheep and I will not start being one today.
"My country and my loyalty to who showed confidence in me will remain first and foremost. I will continue to work for as long as I will find support for what I am doing," he wrote.
The OPM's reaction regarding Mr Grima contrasts sharply with the stand the Prime Minister took last November when he objected to similar anti-migration statements made on Facebook by Labour candidate Robert Henry Bugeja.
In one post Mr Bugeja claimed the President was forcing Maltese to integrate with African migrants whom he accused of “stealing Maltese jobs” and enjoying preferential treatment when it came to social benefits.
A spokesman for Dr Muscat had then said the Prime Minister “does not agree with such views and is not comfortable with anyone expressing them in any forum”.
This led to Mr Bugeja withdrawing his candidature from the casual election and resigning from the Labour Party.
Mr Grima did not just reserve his outbursts for the President. He also launched an attack on tenor Joseph Calleja, who is the island’s cultural ambassador, for saying that the Maltese who derived pleasure from migrant drownings were ignorant.
“Are there any more people left to insult the Maltese who do not believe in integration and who want to feel safe in their country? Together with the President who called us racist, we have Joseph Calleja, who called us ignorant.
“These people all suffer from a superiority complex because they stick together and feel they are not part of the nation but that they belong to higher social standing.
“If it comes to battle, and in my opinion this battle must happen, those at the top will come beneath and those beneath will come out on top.”
Previous rants by Mr Grima have landed him in hot water.
In August 2012, Dr Muscat accepted Mr Grima’s resignation as show host on the Labour Party’s TV station, One, after he launched an attack on a priest who had written a critical obituary in The Catholic Herald of former leader Dom Mintoff.
“**** you Father. If you’re not already used to it there are enough paedophiles in your clan to show you the ropes,” Mr Grima wrote, referring to criminal cases involving paedophile priests that had been in the headlines in previous months.
He has also described human rights NGO Aditus Foundation as “cultural rapists”.