How your tax funds Joseph Muscat’s business

The UK is disgusted and outraged at how its former prime minister used taxpayer money to run his private office for personal profit. He also exploited contacts and influence he gained in office to make more money. Yet the way it was handled was completely different to the situation in Malta with disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat.

Public funds are not intended to subsidise profit-generating business for the former prime minister. Senior politicians are now calling for Boris Johnson’s taxpayer-funded allowance to be suspended. The government ethics watchdog has opened an investigation into Johnson’s alleged abuse.

Johnson diverted public funds intended solely for his public duties as former prime minister to fund his private office and make money.  He lobbied a senior Saudi official, whom he met while in office, with the intention of making money. He held a secret meeting with Peter Thiel, a billionaire whose company was given a role managing NHS data.

Lobbying contacts developed while in office is prohibited.  Using public funds for personal profit constitutes misuse of taxpayers’ money.

Compare that with the situation in Labour’s Malta, where the disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat, at his last Cabinet meeting, awarded himself private use of a newly refurbished government office in Sa Maison with sea views and a private gated entrance specifically.

Muscat also gave himself two landline phone connections, an internet connection, a computer, printer and scanner to use in that office paid by taxpayer funds.  All utilities, water and electricity, as well as cleaning and maintenance of that office is also funded by us, the taxpayers.

Muscat doesn’t use that Sa Maison office to fulfill any public duties.  Muscat uses it to run his business and to make hundreds of thousands of euro in profit.

The whole shocking arrangement was kept secret for months until The Shift revealed it.  Muscat was meeting developers and construction magnates in those offices as part of his private work.

Prime Minister Robert Abela refused to provide details about that office until finally, almost two years after Muscat moved into that office, Abela was compelled to admit that Muscat was using it as part of the severance package that Muscat gave himself at his last Cabinet meeting.

For months, Abela resisted FOI requests, parliamentary questions and journalists’ enquiries about Muscat’s office. But when the police raided that office at the same time they searched Muscat’s Burmarrad home, Abela had no option but to admit to the obscene arrangement.

Even then, Abela attempted to cover up for his predecessor, claiming that “details have already been given”. In fact, Abela and his OPM had repeatedly and robustly blocked all information about Muscat’s severance package.

In June 2022, Minister Silvio Schembri was asked in parliament for a copy of the lease contract and the terms of Muscat’s Sa Maison office use.  Schembri’s answer was “a reply will be given in another parliamentary session”. That session never came. Minister Schembri was asked who had authorised Muscat’s use of those offices.  Schembri replied that he was still “collecting” the information.

It turns out Muscat picked those offices himself before he stepped down.  He particularly liked the unobstructed views of the Msida Marina. He moved in just weeks after his forced resignation.

Three years later, in January 2023, Abela was asked a parliamentary question about Muscat’s use of those offices.  The Prime Minister brushed off the question, stating, “I have nothing to add to what has already been said”. Yet he revealed that he was allowing Muscat to continue “using the building”.

Meanwhile, Muscat kept meeting his private clients – mainly developers and construction magnates – at Sa Maison.  He’d got to know them pretty well while in public office – Fortina Group’s Zammit Tabonas, Michael Stivala, casino managing director Johann Schembri, Accutor’s Wasay Bhatti, and other contractors.

It would take another year before a Standards Commissioner investigation revealed that Muscat gave himself perks his predecessors never enjoyed, including use of the government-funded Sa Maison offices, a second official car for his wife Michelle, and the option to double his lump sum.

That sum topped €120,000. The Standards Commissioner exonerated Abela, saying he “could not be held responsible for the terms of Muscat’s exit package” as the conditions were set out while Muscat was still prime minister.

Muscat had been lying all along.  He claimed that his severance package was practically the same as that of other former prime ministers. It wasn’t.

He claimed that he wasn’t the first prime minister to have a taxpayer-funded office for his private work. He’s right – Dom Mintoff was the only other one, but he was doing government business.

Robert Abela cannot be exonerated.  For years, he kept Muscat’s severance package secret.  He rejected FOI requests.  He dodged one parliamentary question after another. He gave foggy answers to journalists’ queries, including telling them that “no specific agreement exists” over the use of the Sa Maison offices.

Abela is the one allowing Muscat to continue to profit handsomely from using that taxpayer-funded office.  Muscat himself confirmed he has no lease on his Sa Maison office and that the Prime Minister can kick him out whenever he pleases.

Muscat doesn’t need any taxpayer subsidies to make more money.  In 2020 alone, the year he stepped down, he declared an income of close to €482,000 from various consultancies.

The UK set up an investigation to look into Boris Johnson’s abuse of public funds for private profit.  Senior politicians are calling for the suspension of Johnson’s public funding.

In Malta, the State funds Joseph Muscat’s private business, helping him make even more obscene amounts of money through contacts he made during his time in office.  Meanwhile, the Prime Minister continues to do his utmost to shield his former boss and to keep that obscene state subsidy running and secret from the public who funds it.