Malta’s President, Marie Louise Coleiro Preca, who on Thursday ends her five-year stint at San Anton Palace, made 89 trips abroad during her term of office, costing taxpayers around €2.5 million in travel expenses, The Sunday Times of Malta revealed.

An exercise carried out by the newspaper during the past weeks shows that the President clogged up over 200,000 air miles in five years, with most of her travels in Europe.

However, other overseas appointments saw President Coleiro Preca and her entourage travel long haul, at least once a year to the United States, mainly to attend appointments related to the United Nations. She also visited Australia and Canada.

Dr Coleiro Preca also paid official visits to Chile and to Ghana and travelled three times to Iceland, mainly to attend conferences, as well as to Azerbaijan, for an UN forum and to Dubai where she led a business delegation.

Based on the weekly publication of the President’s engagements in The Sunday Times of Malta, statistics show that London and Brussels were the President’s most frequent destinations.

London and Brussels were the President’s favourite destinations

While most of the UK trips were related to the President visiting Maltese patients in various UK hospitals, the President’s frequent trips to Zaventem airport in Brussels were mostly related to visits to the European Parliament.

Presidency sources told this newspaper that Dr Coleiro Preca was by far the most travelled President in Malta’s history when compared to her predecessors.

However, this could not be confirmed officially as the Office of the President twice refused to give details on her office’s travels and those of her predecessors.

Asked according to the Freedom of Information Act to provide the newspaper with a list of travels during her presidency and that of her predecessor George Abela, the Office of the President refused, stating that “no such codified document” exists and referred the newspaper to check her weekly diary over the past five years.

Based on budget estimates published by the Finance Ministry since 2014, it is estimated that Dr Coleiro Preca’s overseas appointments has cost taxpayers some €2.5 million.

Although some of the travel expenses relate to the President’s travels are still being calculated, senior officials at the Finance Ministry confirmed that the Office of the President had significantly increased its travel budget, with the ministry having to continuously approve extended allocations as the original budget would have run out  before the end of each year.

“For example for the year 2017, the Finance Ministry originally allocated a budget of €400,000 for travel by the office of the President. However, her office ended up spending almost twice that amount, €754,813, for that year,” the senior official explained.

Statistics also show that Dr Coleiro Preca made most trips abroad last year, her last full-year in office, when she travelled 25 times.

The size of her delegations also ballooned over the years, increasing expenses significantly.

While normally, under previous presidencies, only one minister used to accompany her on official visits, as per protocol, this rule was not followed during the last five years. On some occasions, the President’s delegation ended up having five ministers and parliamentary secretaries apart from a raft of chief executives and other senior government officials.

The office of the President of Malta is ceremonial and has no executive powers.