I truly and honestly don’t give a hoot about which politician is sleeping with whom because, except for a few that I can count on one hand, I have such a bad impression of politicians in general, that an extra-marital affair won’t dent their reputation any further.

I’m guessing that the same stands for most of us because, whilst we all enjoy a tad of juicy gossip every now and then, knowing that a politician has had or is having an extra marital affair, is unlikely to affect our voting decisions - unless of course the said affair is costing us tax money, or other public resources.

I’m certainly not going to go into the speculations about Konrad’s Mizzi’s love life, and I certainly don’t have the time nor the patience to try to guess whose lying and who’s not in this whole debacle. I’m also fully aware that this story could be a dirty tactic aimed at bringing the focus back on Konrad Mizzi rather than George Pullicino. However, whilst I am absolutely not bothered with Konrad Mizzi’s sex life, I really would like to know whether the astronomical amount that his wife is being paid out of public coffers, is justified.

Back in September 2013, The Office of the Prime Minister announced that Malta Enterprise had recruited Sai Mizzi Liang, as its investment promotion envoy for Asia. According to the OPM’s statement, Mizzi Liang’s responsibility was “to promote Asian investment in Malta and Maltese exports" to Asia, targeting China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore.

About eight months after Sai Mizzi’s appointment and after lots of pressure from the Opposition and the public, Sai Mizzi’s contract of employment was tabled in Parliament. This paper published a copy of it, but the contract only showed what we’re paying Sai Mizzi and not for what.

Except for ‘facilitating the processing of visas,’ to date we still have no concrete description of what she’s supposed to be doing; we have no idea where she’s working from; we have no idea what she’s delivered, and we certainly have no clue as to what her targets are. All we know is that we’ll be paying Sai Mizzi a substantial above-average package for three whole years.

It took me a while to write about this because I wanted to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. I thought that details of Sai Mizzi’s role would emerge, and that in due time, we’d witness some of her deliverables. But now, more than a year later, too much time has passed and I’ve run out of benefits and am only left with the doubts.

All that matters, at least to me, is what Sai Mizzi is doing for Malta, whether she’s doing enough to justify her pay, whether her appointment had anything to do with her being a Minister’s wife, and whether her connections had anything to do with the China-Enemalta deal. I’d also like to know whether we’re paying Lindsey Gambin’s salary for reasons other than her being a good communications coordinator for the Ministry of Energy and Health.

If the government could answer these questions convincingly, no one would be bothered with the state of Konrad Mizzi’s marriage, and the DOI could start to occupy itself with more important things rather than issuing statements to assure us that the Mizzi’s marriage is ‘as good as ever’.

Let’s face it, why harp on something with no relevance to the country, when publishing Sai Mizzi’s targets and results would shut everyone up?

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.