Jettisoned – Kevin Cassar

Joseph Muscat has been dumped. Even Robert Abela, his anointed successor, has finally seen the light.  In a Damascene conversion, Abela publicly declared Muscat “the problem I inherited”.

Of course, Abela didn’t have the guts to lay it out so starkly. He’s still wary of Muscat and the control he exerts through those he undeservedly promoted to key positions. But Abela’s message was clear enough.  “People will judge me on how I offered a solution to the problem I inherited”.

He was referring to the Vitals-Steward scam.  Even Labour’s leader now admits the rotten deal is a problem.  Everybody’s relieved that for once the whole country agrees – the reeking Vitals-Steward scam is a huge problem.  But that problem didn’t just materialise out of thin air.  It is the carefully crafted scam of one man – Joseph Muscat.

ONE News is in total disarray.  It’s caught in a fix.  Should they accept Abela’s assertion that the Vitals scam is a problem to be solved? Or should they continue to protect Joseph Muscat and his increasingly wacky claims that he always put the country’s interest first? That’s not an easy dilemma for the station that churned out its unadulterated adulation for the Great Leader for years.

ONE’s solution to its own very particular problem was to remain completely silent.  On the Sunday after the court delivered its devastating judgement exposing Muscat’s fraudulent Vitals deal, ONE news didn’t even feature the court’s ruling in any of its stories.

That judgement was a mighty apocalypse for Labour. The whole country is still reeling from the impact of that judgement.  And yet, Labour’s ONE didn’t even mention it.

In June 2013, the triumphant Muscat declared, “I will embark on an earthquake of change in the country’s administration, and I will be proved right once again. I have a clear mandate to change things and that is what will be done.”

That Muscat changed things is not in doubt. Sadly, that change created the ghastly problems Abela now grapples with.

But nothing is ever straightforward with Labour. In a further bizarre twist, Abela is claiming that he offered a solution to the Vitals-Steward problem. You would have thought he had kicked Steward out and reclaimed half the health service back from the clutches of Muscat’s friends.

You might imagine Abela had confronted Steward and taken back the millions of euros they siphoned into their dodgy enterprise.  Abela could have exposed all the hidden details about the secret negotiations with Steward to take over from Vitals.

He could have explained why Steward paid €2.6 million to Accutor AG on the very day of the handover.  Accutor AG subsequently signed Joseph Muscat up, agreeing to pay him €15,000 per month indefinitely, mere days after he was forced out of office.

Abela did nothing – what solution?

Quite the contrary.  Abela was Muscat’s consultant when his cabinet endorsed the obscene deal to pay Steward €100 million and all of its debts should the contract be terminated. Abela was an advisor to Muscat and that cabinet. How could he go to court to get that stinking deal extinguished? What would he tell the Magistrate that he’d been party to the endorsement of the deal he was asking to be annulled because it was a total fraud?

Now Abela is frantically washing his hands of that rip-off. “I had no role,” he keeps insisting. But he’s now gone further.

He has miraculously finally confronted Muscat’s lies.  Muscat claimed that all the Vitals-Steward deals were struck after discussions with and the endorsement of cabinet.  Abela openly contradicts him. “The first time I saw the contract (for the €100 million default payment) was after it was signed”.

Abela is making sure that everybody recognises Muscat’s deceit.

Abela has even allied himself with his one-time leadership challenger Chris Fearne.  He’s sending the message to Muscat: ‘You’re on your own, buddy.’

Abela pointed out that it’s not just his word against Muscat’s.  Even Fearne hadn’t seen the €100 million default deal before it was signed.  “This is a point already made by the Deputy Prime Minister, and I confirm that version”.

Abela is confirming Chris Fearne’s account.  ‘We – Fearne and I – are telling the truth,’ is his message, and Muscat is lying again.

Abela was crystal clear. “Do you think that Joseph Muscat and Konrad Mizzi should be investigated for their role in this contract?” he was asked.

To which he replied, “There is an ongoing investigation….”.  “I mean a criminal investigation”, the reporter retorted.  “A magisterial inquiry is the type of investigation you are referring to,” Abela stated.

There it is, straight from the horse’s mouth. The Vitals-Steward deal was a problem. The €100 million default deal was struck behind his back. Joseph Muscat and Konrad Mizzi should be criminally investigated.

The lessons from the National Audit Office report and the court ruling will be learned.  Abela’s Labour government agrees with the court judgement and won’t appeal. It wants to cut the appeals period.

Abela now wants everybody to know that the Vitals-Steward deal was rotten.  He keeps reminding us, “I wasn’t responsible for what happened”. And he wants everybody to know who was.

“I took all the decisions, even difficult ones, within the structures of the party and with the help of the executive, and today those decisions are being better understood,” Abela declared.

“Is that a reference to Konrad Mizzi?” a reporter shouted. “I think the reference… cannot be missed”.

Even Robert Abela now publicly condemns Konrad Mizzi and Joseph Muscat. That noose is slowly tightening.  Muscat has been jettisoned, hurtling at terminal velocity towards a final devastating crash.

Muscat has been hoisted on his own petard. “I know what I am doing, as I knew what I was doing five years ago,” he boldly declared days after his 2013 election victory just as those secret Panamanian companies were being set up.

Now, at last, Malta knows it too.