After three long years, Robert Abela finally sat down to an interview with the independent media. And then spent the following hour deceiving the public. He kicked off by denying he’d refused to be interviewed.

“The Times have been inviting you to this interview for three years. Why did you accept now?” “This is my third interview with you,” he told Mark Laurence Zammit. “But that was before I joined The Times, The Times have been inviting you for an interview for ages.”

“On the contrary, I have always been open to questions from the media and I take journalists’ questions regularly and consistently.” “But you’ve never sat down to an interview,” Mark Laurence insisted. “I’m sitting with you right now. I’ve had various interviews, even with you, many times”, he falsely persisted.

Abela was defying the known truth, shamelessly, at the first question. That is how it went on. When Mark Laurence wouldn’t let Abela’s untruthful comments pass, Abela rudely interrrupted him “you’re wasting a lot of time”.

So, Mark Laurence ploughed on. “At least three companies that won government contracts while Joseph Muscat was prime minister gave him consultancies worth loads of money after he stepped down, do you think this is right?”

“Do you know how much you are speculating,” Abela answered. “You are making assumptions that the consultancies he was given were some sort of compensation for what he did (while he was prime minister) and I am not in a position to deny or confirm that this happened.” Ouch.

Abela then resorted to fallacies. He claimed that if a revolving door policy were to be introduced to prevent the obscenities Muscat is committing, the two surgeons in his cabinet, Chris Fearne and Jo-Etienne Abela, wouldn’t be able to work as surgeons for two or three years. Utter crap.

Abela either has absolutely no clue what revolving door policies are or is wilfully fibbing. “They cannot go back to operate if they regulate the health sector – so you have two surgeons who cannot operate,” he insisted.

“No, no”, Mark Laurence objected, “the problem is the private sector, private companies that were given contracts.”

“Revolving door policy makes no such distinction,” Abela twisted, “this is what happens everywhere.”

Robert Abela spent the following hour deceiving the public- Kevin Cassar

Abela was conning the nation. This is not what happens everywhere. In the UK, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) specifically advises on possible conflicts of interest when former ministers and prime ministers take up jobs in the private sector – the private sector. Jo-Etienne Abela and Fearne would be able to return to work as surgeons in the public service the minute they step down from their ministerial post. There would be no conflict of interest. They would pose no risk to the state. Abela surely knows this.

UK former ministers are not prevented from taking up public sector posts. They’re not even prevented from taking up all private sector posts. The ministerial code states that they must seek advice from ACOBA about employment they wish to take up within two years of leaving office. Former ministers must abide by the committee’s advice – and that advice is published for all to see – no secret termination packages there.

Abela’s second argument against the introduction of a revolving door policy was that the state would have to pay former ministers and prime ministers a salary to stay at home for two or three years. If such a policy could have stopped the hundreds of millions being siphoned off into Vitals and Steward, a couple years’ salary for Muscat to stay at home would have certainly been worth it. A couple years’ salary would be far less costly to the state than a €100 million termination deal Konrad Mizzi secretly struck with Steward.

And hasn’t Muscat got two years’ salary anyway in his €120,000 termination deal that Abela negotiated with him but refuses to publish?

The truth is that we’ve paid Muscat two years’ salary anyway and he’s still got his lucrative consultancy deals from those who benefited from millions of taxpayers’ money during his premiership.

And if you’re wondering why Abela is so keen to avoid a revolving door policy, it’s because he knows he won’t be prime minister for life. He’s got one eye on his current job and another on his future ones. He’s seen what Muscat managed to secure for himself. Abela doesn’t want to lose out.

We know where Abela’s priorities lie. Abela made €36,000 from renting his uninhabitable Żejtun property to wealthy Russians. He failed to include this sum in his declaration of assets. But the money wasn’t the point. What was more relevant was that Abela knew his abandoned property was uninhabitable. He knew those Russians weren’t living in it. Yet, he rented it to them to enable them to cheat the system. He provided them with the false evidence they required to apply for a Maltese golden passport. He never mentioned that in his interview.

Neither did he tell us why the declarations of assets were submitted months late. Or why he didn’t even bother to include his income last year. Or why he

allowed the new ministers and parliamentary secretaries not to include their income for the previous year.

He claimed he did nothing wrong when he struck a deal worth €45,000 with Chris Borg, the alleged kidnapper, who was his client. Abela didn’t explain why Borg was applying for permits on that Żabbar plot while Abela, then the Planning Authority’s legal adviser, still held its promise of sale. Or why Abela ceded his right to buy the land to Borg days after the Planning Authority conveniently issued the necessary permits.

When challenged about how somebody who repeatedly failed his exams still became a police officer and proceeded to be accused of beating up innocent people simply because of their skin colour, Abela held the case up as an example of the institutions working.

No wonder Abela spent three years avoiding interviews.