Joseph Muscat was offered a job by a firm linked to Steward Healthcare right after he announced his intention to quit frontline politics, the former prime minister has said.

Muscat said that he was approached by Pakistani lawyer Wasay Bhatti during the weeks between his December 2019 announcement that he would be stepping aside as prime minister and him actually moving on the subsequent month.

“He and quite a few others offered me jobs and roles in their companies,” Muscat said in an interview with Lovin Malta.

Bhatti’s company Accutor AG wired Muscat €60,000 within a few weeks in 2020. Muscat has said that the money was payment for consultancy work he did for the firm – work that Muscat described as being focused on “infrastructural projects in several continents involving high-ranking companies.”

Muscat’s work with Accutor has attracted legal scrutiny as the Bhatti-run firm was paid €3.6 million by Steward Healthcare, which was granted a concession to run three state hospitals by the Muscat government.

The bulk of those payments were made on the same day that Steward received that concession in 2018, Times of Malta has previously revealed.

Steward has said that it was asked to send the funds to Accutor by shareholders of Vitals Global Healthcare, the company which originally held the hospitals concession, and that it made subsequent payments for payroll services.

Muscat and Bhatti

In his interview with Lovin Malta, Muscat said he had been introduced to Bhatti some years back in Malta.

“He was introduced to me as an investor,” he said. “He has or had an office in Malta.”

Bhatti has another tie to Maltese politics: a leaked email shows that the lawyer was approached by Yorgen Fenech, who asked Bhatti for help to set up structures for personal business “which gives a certain leave of discretion”. 

Fenech, an heir to the Tumas business fortune who stands accused of complicity in the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, had already been outed as the owner of secret company 17 Black at the time he sent the email.

Muscat said he was not the “common friend” that Fenech mentioned to Bhatti in the email and declined to speculate as to who that friend might be.

Fenech had subsequently forwarded his email to Bhatti to Muscat’s former right-hand man and chief of staff Keith Schembri.

Muscat said Bhatti has assured him that he did not help Fenech and that the email was therefore not problematic.

“I learnt about the email from the media and had asked him about this,” Muscat said.

He said Bhatti told him he had no recollection of the email and had not acted on it.

“Dr Bhatti said he did not follow it up... it was not something he was willing to do. Maybe he did his due diligence [about Fenech],” he said.

Search of Muscat home 

Scrutiny into Muscat’s consultancy deal with Accutor led to police searching the Muscat family home in Burmarrad last month.

The search drew scathing criticism from Muscat, who has insisted the search was an exercise in “theatrics” as he had previously volunteered information about his work, but had been ignored.

Joseph Muscat, accompanies by his wife Michelle, ministers and OPM staff, exits Castille for the final time as prime minister in January 2020. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

He said he had not spoken to his successor, Robert Abela, about the search – either before or after it happened – but that “many” people in government were “angry” about the way it was carried out.

The former Labour leader has said that his trust in the inquiry, which is being led by magistrate Gabriella Vella, has been “dented” as information about the search was leaked ahead of time.

“The ball is in her court. I know she has a lot of pressure from NGOs and the usual suspects,” he said.

But despite those strong words, Muscat insisted he was “only defending himself” and not criticising the magistrate or her work.

Muscat has been more vocal in recent weeks, and said that he had decided to speak out because “some were interpreting my silence as an admission of guilt.”

Labour's silver spoon

He also spoke about the Labour Party, saying he believed that some “well-intentioned” people currently within the party tend to take things for granted and focus too intently on social media.

“There are people who think that it is only natural that Labour is in government,” he said, as he also spoke critically of people within the party who “spend their life looking at social media”.

Muscat on stage as Labour celebrate their 2013 electoral victory.

“Some people are too impressed by a couple of Facebook posts and would be willing to do things without having the historical knowledge of the repercussions,” he said. Muscat did not provide any specific examples of what he meant.  

The former prime minister said he is still in contact with "practically everyone" within the party, albeit in person rather than professional capacity.