One of the constant headaches of writing about politics, and especially about the present situation in Malta, is that of being overtaken by events. I thought this was just the case when I sat down to write about a certain trip to Dubai even as the news broke of Melvin Theuma’s moment of privacy. (That’s when he spent the evening stabbing himself and slitting his throat while the police sat outside discussing climate change).
I was wrong. I’m not suggesting that Joseph Muscat had anything directly to do with the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. I am saying that in his time as prime minister he oversaw the rise and consolidation of a tissue of corruption that gave us a dead journalist and now a half-dead key witness, among other horrors.
Which means that it is both legitimate and right to write about his trip to Dubai.
The present events are nothing but this week’s instalment in the cost of corruption, measured in lives.
Case Report K/020 of the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life is a truly sobering read. It’s also one in which the conclusion – that Muscat did not breach the code of ethics – is completely out of touch with the rest. Technically, the commissioner may be right. But it’s our job to establish that what Muscat did was politically outrageous, and consequentially so.
The facts are clear. In December, at the height of a massive political crisis and when he was still prime minister, Muscat spent two days in Dubai with his family. So far so typically contemptuous, but it turns out that the four first-class plane tickets were paid for in cash by an unknown someone in Jordan.
Back in Malta, Muscat was asked by the press who had paid for the trip: four first-class tickets and a salaried employee of the state are hard to reconcile. His reply was ‘It’s none of your business. It’s my personal… er… private funds’.
Nothing serves Muscat better than a Commissioner for Standards telling us that the details of a major gift to a serving prime minister are not in the public interest- Mark Anthony Falzon
That, we now know, was as barefaced as it was clumsy, and lying isn’t widely regarded as a pillar of the code of ethics for prime ministers – even if the Commissioner for Standards appears to think otherwise.
Lies aside, there are two big problems here. It has taken me months to realise just what a tusker the first is – perhaps it was overshadowed by events. That a serving prime minister should accept such a major gift from someone in Jordan known only to himself, and that he should deem it his private business and none of ours, is astonishing to say the least.
As far as we know, the only friend Muscat has in Jordan is a certain Sadeen, whose name is festooned all over the Cospicua waterfront. That’s because Muscat’s government gave Sadeen a free hand to set up a ghost university in one of the choicest locations in Malta, even as the University of Malta struggles for air in Msida.
As if that weren’t enough, Sadeen the Jordanian very nearly got a stretch of the coastline at Żonqor, as well as extra bits of land in Cottonera. At which point four first-class tickets begin to look quite the deal.
Now I know I may be wide of the mark. Muscat is a very nice man, and like all very nice men he has friends everywhere, including in Jordan. But that’s exactly why, and whatever the Commissioner for Standards says, we need to know who paid for those tickets: very nice friends of very nice men are worth knowing.
There’s another thing. As part of his investigation, the Commissioner for Standards interviewed Muscat.
He concluded that the trip to Dubai was ‘of a private nature and not related to official business’, and that it was ‘not paid for by any person or entity that has, or has had, or was expected to have an interest in legislation in Malta or any other commercial or political interest in Malta’.
Which would, if it were true, rule out Sadeen and his kind. Thus the question: how do we know it’s true?
The answer is that the Commissioner for Standards says it is, because he was so assured by a disinterested party called Joseph Muscat. The details are none of our business. As the report puts it, ‘at Dr Muscat’s request, I consider it prudent not to publish the purpose and the details of the trip made available to me’.
Like the Commissioner for Standards, I respect Muscat’s right to his privacy. I don’t need to know what he had for breakfast or what Mrs Muscat told him about her epic swims. What I do not respect is that a serving prime minister should classify a major gift by undisclosed donors as private business. I’m amazed the commissioner appears to share his opinion.
I’m happy to accept that George Hyzler ruled in good faith, and that he did his best. Except in this case his best is worse than nothing at all. Knowingly or not, and I assume the latter, he let himself be drawn into a masterclass of political subterfuge.
Nothing serves Muscat better than a Commissioner for Standards telling us that the details of a major gift to a serving prime minister are not in the public interest. Nothing benefits him more than that Commissioner telling us that we don’t need to know, as long as he does.
This is exactly how corrupt politicians work: they tap into the structures and offices of the state to defeat the morality of that state. That those structures and offices are often occupied by decent people only makes things more insidious, and far worse.