When Joseph Muscat was struggling to rebuild the Labour Party, he brought in one of Malta’s leading businessman, Keith Schembri, as his eminence grise.

I never met the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, who, I’m told, is a very powerful man. Chiefs of staff always are. However, and especially in the early days of the Labour administration, I often heard that he was “very pro-business” and “understood their (businessmen’s) concerns because he is one of them”.

I never heard anyone saying that Schembri is a remarkable policy-maker. Emmanuel Macron, who will probably become France’s new President, brought in one of France’s most respected policy experts, Jean Paul Pisani-Ferry, as his right-hand man when he launched his political movement. Eddie Fenech Adami had Richard Cachia Caruana as his own chief of staff, known for his intellectual rigour, policy-making, negotiating skills (he negotiated Malta’s EU membership) and experience in public administration. Muscat has Schembri (some say that it’s the other way round, but that’s rather a cheeky comment).

Muscat was then a young leader at the helm of a party flat on its back, and his eminence grise helped him secure his dream. Now he risks being his downfall. The Prime Minister and his eminence grise turned chief of staff are largely to blame for the current political crisis – for a crisis it is, and a big one too.

Business interests, we’re told, took the better of them. Both men deny charges brought against them. I shall not be a judge to that. The people will shortly decide their fate.

What troubles me, and many others, is the ‘go-between’ role assumed by Mr Schembri – the link between the Prime Minister and the business community.

I am not suggesting that leading businessmen and women should be kept away from the decision-making level. This country should be grateful to leading entrepreneurs who, despite the challenges faced by a small country, created thousands of jobs and have, time and again, given a much needed boost to our economy.

However, a successful businessman – and I’m told that Mr Schembri managed to build his business ‘empire’ from scratch, which is probably true – does not necessarily make a successful policy-maker. In other words, and to quote Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, a country is not a company.

Schembri helped Muscat achieve his dream. How he risks being his downfall

I have no doubt that Schembri is a good go-between, a facilitator, call him what you want, between the Office of the Prime Minister and the business community, but the fact that he is a successful businessman, with a multitude of business interests (he says that he resigned his directorships when he assumed office) complicates matters for the Muscat administration. Not only does it expose Schembri to accusations of conflicts of interest and worse, but his business acumen does not necessarily make him a sound policy advisor, which the role of chief of staff at the Office of the Prime Minister entails.

If the Prime Minister wanted a facilitator between the business community and his administration, he should have invested in the proper tools to do so – and that is not done through a businessman as his chief of staff.

And if anyone says that the economy continued to do relatively well thanks to Schembri’s business acumen, that is a feeble excuse to defend the Prime Minister’s wrong decision in appointing him as his second-in-command. Strong foundations put down by previous administrations, aided and abetted by resilient entrepreneurs and workforce, is the key to today’s results. The current international economic situation helped, and Finance Minister Edward Scicluna did not mess up.

That is not to say that the current administration did no good in maintaining Malta’s economic momentum. If anything, it did not upset the apple cart – until the Panama Papers scandal blew their world apart.

In government, you need a multitude of abilities, but you cannot have people who think that running a country is equivalent to running a company, and in so doing, refusing to let go of their business interests.

When Schembri and Mizzi were caught hiding companies in Panama, one said that it was set up “to safeguard his family assets” and the other cited business interests. It is pertinent to point out that they set up their companies a few days after Labour took office. Even if we are to believe them, it jars because a newly elected Cabinet minister, and a chief of staff at the Office of the Prime Minister, should, from day one in office, be rearing to put their policies into action, not rushing to “secure and safeguard” their business interests away from the tax man.

That alone makes them unfit for office. The latest controversy surrounding Schembri continues to prove how wrong the Prime Minister was in appointing him as his right-hand man. He is now accused of receiving kickbacks, an accusation he denies, from an accountant, Brian Tonna, who, we are told, doubles up as business consultant to the Prime Minister, to the extent that he was given a desk in Schembri’s and Muscat’s office.

Tonna’s apparent role, among many others, is to sell Maltese citizenship to the rich and famous. And even if we are to believe Schembri’s defence – that the money transferred from Tonna’s secret company bank account to his Pilatus Bank account was the ‘repayment of a loan’ – that too is another reason why Schembri, and most of all, Tonna, should not have been appointed and allowed to rub shoulders at the Prime Minister’s office.

Chiefs of staff and consultants employed at the Office of the Prime Minister are expected to draw up policies and advise him on matters of government, not to do business on the side and run their show.

A lawyer by profession, Frank Psaila anchors Iswed fuq l-Abjad on NET TV.