From the online comments

Muscat loses his cool at end of rowdy PAC hearing

Former PM makes second appearance before committee

Now that the monologue charade is over, and it’s question time, the disgraced emperor ends up without clothes! – Stephen Borg

“Muscat confirms that Brian Tonna did not have an OPM office.” Maybe they should ask Joseph Muscat whether Tonna shared an office with anybody at Castille or whether he hot-desked at Castille. He was paid €60,000 per annum as a consultant after all. – Mark Sant

Why has Brian Tonna not been questioned by the police? He admitted that Egrant is his! – M. Vassallo

I do not see why Darren Carabott made such a big fuss about the phrase “everything he touches turns to gold”. Or why Muscat was ruffled and did not give a straight answer. The idiom means that everything someone does, succeeds or becomes better. What is wrong with that? Unless, which is more plausible, Muscat suspected or believed that Konrad Mizzi had personal motives instead.

What is wrong is that this PAC is a slinging match between government and opposition MPs. Instead of the former grilling the witness they grill the opposition MPs. What a farce. And what a far cry from the UK Parliament Privileges Committee that grilled Boris Johnson on Partygate.

Who says that our parliamentary system is modelled on the Westminster model is right. But on paper only. – V. Zammit

Joseph Muscat at the PAC Photo: Jonathan Borg

Maltese politicians are pathetically mediocre, possibly good at self-enrichment and nothing else. The Maltese people, in my view, have nothing to gain from these PAC probes: very little new information was obtained which was not already known. The person interviewed can claim the right to remain silent, claim amnesia or simply take the committee for a ride.

The PN is using the interviews to try and discredit further the persons probed. This may have a reinforcing effect with hardcore PN voters but is not succeeding in swaying any sizeable portion of voters to their side by means of the probes or anything else and, at the end of the day, this is what really counts for them. They are just breathlessly running on the spot, as my old PE teacher used to make us do, and going nowhere.

In my view, PAC is a waste of time most of the time. – Alba Trossington 

PAC is a very good democratic tool to hold the MPs to account. The UK’s Boris Johnson case is a prime example. Here, unfortunately, Labour doesn’t want to own up to the fact that it was used by a criminal gang to enrich themselves. – A. Caruana

These attacks of selective amnesia are very worrying. Poor old Edward Scicluna seems to struggle to remember anything more than his own name when questioned. Must be something in the Kinnie they serve at Mile End. – Mark Hesketh Jones 

The rat is in the corner and it is getting quite tight. He knows it and is desperate to play it cool. But his body language amply gives him away. His puerile comments, his constant baseless comparisons to PN people, his selective, very selective, amnesia, his sarcasm and especially his final challenge to Carabott amply proves to an intelligent mind that the rat is afraid, very afraid. – Scott Brown

And the noose continues to tighten around the Kink’s neck! – C. Sant

PAC - Premium Amateurs Committee! – M. Grima

Today JM Invictus has been defeated in his second session at the PAC. Soon he will lose the war. – Mario Aquilina