Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is slipping badly. When asked if spending €756 on drinks during a ministerial delegation to Dubai should lead to any resignation, as it amounted to misuse of public funds, he quickly replied he did not think the Auditor General qualified it as such. It was not something he was pleased about but the refund of the money spent was a “mature decision”, Dr Muscat said.

The Auditor General might not have spelled it out but is there anyone in the country, of whatever political persuasion, who can possibly think otherwise? Even if drinks in Dubai were expensive, who would think of racking up such a huge bill and, to boot, charge the taxpayer?

If the Auditor General did not spot the anomaly in his random test, it is the taxpayer that would have paid for the binge drinking.

If this is not a clear case of misuse of public funds, what is it? Does the government need confirmation by the Auditor General to see whether overspending on anything amounts to misuse of public funds? The argument is simply ridiculous, as is describing the refund of part of the amount as a “mature decision”.

True, the Prime Minister said this was not something he was pleased about but to go on from there to describe the refund as a “mature decision” is lowering the bar of propriety to the lowest level possible. It was the least that could be done.

The Nationalist Party is right in questioning the Prime Minister’s moral authority. The case may be trivial considering the string of scandals that has rocked the administration but it may well be considered as the cherry on the cake of bad governance.

When Dr Muscat finds himself with his back to the wall, which is quite often nowadays, he hits back by pointing out shortcomings by the previous Nationalist administration, forgetting altogether that his party owes its huge electoral victory to the pledge that, if elected, Labour would act differently.

In so far as governance is concerned, Labour has acted far worse than the previous administration. What is surprising is that the party thinks the electorate has completely forgotten its pledge. Or that, once the economy is doing well, scandals, sleaze and misdemeanors can be tolerated.

It is now irrelevant who is actually paying for the drinks, what part of the amount has been refunded or who actually consumed the drinks. What stands out is the sheer misuse of public funds, irrespective of whether or not the Auditor General spelled this out in his report. This could be just the tip of the iceberg.

Come to think of it, the Auditor General spelled out many other shortcomings in his report, a matter that jars too in the light of the promises of good governance made by Labour before the last general election.

What is very relevant is that the binge drinking case brought up by the Auditor General has glaringly shown what this newspaper commented upon the other day – lack of adequate control.

Dr Muscat’s government is riddled with examples of serious lack of good governance, made worse by highly inappropriate remarks by the Prime Minister, such as that which has now become stock in trade, that is, that “things could have been done differently” and, now, “mature decision”.

Worse than this is when he fails to take appropriate action, as in the case of the Panama Papers scandals.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.