Over €125,000 were spent in travelling expenses by the Office of the Prime Minister in the last two months of last year which coincided with Joseph Muscat's final days in office.

The staggering figure emerged from a parliamentary question made by opposition MP Jason Azzopardi.

The latter asked for a detailed breakdown of the money spent on trips abroad and accommodation during November and December of last year, and January 2020.

Azzopardi also asked for information on who had authorised these expenses from taxpayers’ money and the reasons behind them. 

In a terse reply Prime Minister Robert Abela said that in November and December, the sum spent by the OPM on travelling and accommodation was of €125,912.17.

In contrast, in January the respective figure was of just €187.20. However, no further details were divulged with the prime minister saying these trips abroad were related to government commitments. 

The period under review, coincided with the turbulent final weeks of Joseph Muscat’s premiership who was ultimately forced to resign in the wake of the involvement of his chief of staff Keith Schembri in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder investigations. 

The former prime minister had also made headlines as in his final weeks in office he had travelled extensively including a private audience with Pope Francis, a private trip with his family to Dubai, and a visit to Palestine together with the then foreign minister Carmelo Abela among others.