An article penned by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat in 2003 on the cost estimates of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting has come back to haunt him.
The Office of the Prime Minister has so far failed to give details to this newspaper about the financial aspects connected to Malta’s last-minute decision to host CHOGM in 2015 – even though 10 years ago he had described the then Nationalist government’s same reluctance to provide the cost estimates as “irresponsible behaviour”.
Questions sent to Dr Muscat last week asking for details on the money Malta is planning to spend to host the Commonwealth summit in two years’ time remained unanswered at the time of going to print, despite various reminders.
The Sunday Times of Malta asked the Prime Minister’s office to provide the estimated costs of the summit, to state whether the government had carried out any financial exercise before making the offer, and whether any other countries offered to host the summit together with Malta.
The Maltese government offered to host the summit at the 11th hour in Sri Lanka last weekend following the decision by Mauritius to withdraw from organising the next meeting in protest at Sri Lanka’s poor human rights record. India and Canada, two of the largest members of the Commonwealth, boycotted the Sri Lanka summit.
Before the Sri Lanka meeting, the government had not said anything about Malta’s interest in hosting the next gathering.
The OPM’s lack of response on the costs contrasts sharply with an article penned by Dr Muscat in 2003, soon after the government had announced that Malta won the bid to host the CHOGM summit two years later.
In an opinion published in The Times in December 22, 2003, Dr Muscat – then a candidate for the MEP elections – had described the hosting of the meeting as an “honour” but said the government should give details on how much “we (Malta) will have to fork out of public coffers in order to finance this summit”.
“I will not go into the questions on whether our country affords or needs to host such a summit. What I really think is essential is for the government to tell us what it budgets to spend,” he wrote.
Dr Muscat said that without questioning what benefits Malta will reap out of hosting this summit, “costing the event is the minimum information that everyone would expect”.
Then a member of the Labour executive and a prominent party journalist, Dr Muscat had also questioned whether the PN government of the day had carried out any financial exercise before submitting its bid.
If such an exercise were not carried “it would have been irresponsible behaviour,” he said.
The 2005 summit was considered to be a big event for Malta with the Queen’s presence providing the main highlight. It was also remembered for the importation of some 59 brand new top of the range BMWs to drive the summit’s guests from one venue to the other.
The luxury cars were later sold in an auction, raising some €4.6 million for the Community Chest Fund in the run-up of the traditional l-Istrina event.
The costs of the 2005 summit topped the €7 million mark.