In court, Minister Without Portfolio Konrad Mizzi was finally available to answer questions. He’s become a rare sight, strutting off to Europe playing energy minister, when he is not, or to Singapore to witness the launch of an LNG tanker for a power plant that should have started operating one and a half years ago. He was also on the Labour Party’s radio station to assure all that he will be running for election again.
Testifying in a libel case, he was asked to say which company was carrying out the audit on his financial affairs. The audit was meant to have been called in the wake of the Panama scandal when Dr Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri, were found to hold secret companies in Panama. Months later, the name of the auditing company is still unknown, even less its findings.
Dr Mizzi’s reply was astounding: “Those questions should be addressed to the Prime Minister. You can speak to the Prime Minister about it.”
When the question was duly relayed to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, he too refused to name the company.
Apparently, Dr Mizzi’s justification for his negative reply was that revealing the name would put the firm under undue pressure. Given the time it is taking the company to complete the audit, some pressure would do. Still, the country must wait for it to finish the audit in serenity, as it must wait for the government to publish the multi-million contracts Dr Mizzi has signed and kept under wraps.
Forget Labour’s promises of openness and accountability. This is the arrogance of power.
It is ironic that Dr Mizzi would refer the pertinent question to his boss, who is increasingly difficult to pin down and has become as slippery as an eel.
Dr Muscat turned up some days ago to announce that Banif Bank Portugal would be selling its 78.5 per cent stake in Banif Bank Malta to Qatari investment group Al Faisal Holding, for an undisclosed sum. He hailed it as an investment in the country, when it’s actually a sale, and thanked his chief of staff for his role in bringing the sale about. Then, together with Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani, he scurried away without taking any questions.
Before asking him about Dr Mizzi, the first things journalists would have asked the Prime Minister is: what exactly was his role? The deal, it should be pointed out, involved the private acquisition of the third-biggest player in the retail banking sector.
What else was he discussing with one of Qatar’s richest men?
Alas, there were no replies. All that people know is the last time the Prime Minister met a rich man he offered him Żonqor Point to build up.
Next day, at the Aula Magna, in Valletta, Dr Muscat pulled the same trick. This time, he slid through an emergency door to escape the waiting media representatives. Meanwhile the questions keep piling up.
There’s a huge gas tanker about to arrive in Marsaxlokk and the risk study remains unpublished. There is Air Malta, apparently on the brink of collapse, and talks on its sale to Alitalia appear to be getting nowhere. And, yes, there is the problem of Dr Mizzi.
Dr Muscat has done this before. He disappears when faced with a crisis but what crisis it exactly is this time, if there is one at all, we do not know.
Fielding questions is not a con-cession and answering them is a duty.