While Rome burns...

A couple of weeks ago this newspaper carried a cartoon of Joseph Muscat playing the harp on a balcony while Valletta burned in the background. It was obviously an allegory to the story of Nero, emperor of Rome, who is often depicted playing the harp during the Great Fire of AD 64.

Only the real story of Nero is quite different to that of Joseph Muscat. According to legend, he was responsible for the fire, but historic accounts from the time say that Nero, who was in Antium when the devastating fire broke out, returned to Rome, paid for the city’s relief and even spent days searching the rubble for survivors without the protection of his bodyguards.

Muscat, on the other hand, abandoned his Rome and went on multiple trips this month, while the country burned down metaphorically.

On Friday, we learnt that the jet-setting Muscat took a trip to Dubai with his wife and children. On any other occasion, this would not have made the news (except for, maybe, the Labour party TV station).

Why would anyone object to the PM taking his family to a well-deserved Christmas holiday? But this is not a normal Christmas.

Well, for a start, this has not exactly been a good week for Muscat’s already crumbling reputation – the man who, over the past few weeks went from hero to zero; the man who was named by the Organized Crime & Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) as the 2019 winner of the ‘Man of the year in organised crime and corruption.”

It emerged this week that Muscat had received a number of lavish gifts from the person who stands charged with being a mastermind in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. We got to know that Yorgen Fenech gifted Muscat with expensive watches and costly French wines. At the time, Muscat knew that Fenech was being considered as a suspect in the murder.

Muscat’s first reaction when the Bulgari timepiece story came out was to say nothing. Then, the following day, when another newsroom reported that he had received wine bottles worth over 5,000 euro, the Office of the Prime Minister issued a statement, saying only that Muscat would not be answering “deeply manipulated” information.

Muscat’s office did not explain how this information was “manipulated,” and at no point did it deny that the PM had received such gifts. In any normal country, the Prime Minister would resign on the spot if it is revealed that he received gifts from a man charged with masterminding a murder. But not in this fairy tale land we call home.

This is also a time when Muscat’s close sidekick, Keith Schembri, was revealed to have refused to hand over his email passwords to the police officers investigating him in connection with the murder and obstruction of justice … a few days after a court heard how he claimed to have lost the mobile phone he had used to communicate with Yorgen Fenech the day before the latter tried to flee the country. And a few days after Schembri admitted in court that he had failed to tell the police that Fenech was planning to leave the country.

Politically, the country is in meltdown. This is the worst political crisis the country has ever seen. Yet Muscat, instead of doing the right thing and stepping down with immediate effect or at least trying to fight the fire which has him pinned in a corner, gives us the proverbial middle finger and jets off to Dubai.

The other problem with choosing Dubai as a destination is the exorbitant cost that his last holiday there cost him. Each and every one of us remembers the €11,000 hotel bill paid for by the person who earns €67,000 a year and claims to not be able to save a single euro (remember the identical annual declarations of assets?)

It was reported this week (with photos as proof) that the Muscats travelled in great style in an Emirates First Class cabin, which costs thousands of euro. Now, we are not insinuating that someone paid for the flights or gifted the holiday to the Muscats but, given the recent revelations that the PM accepted gifts worth thousands of euro, and from a suspected murder mastermind no less, the fact that he is travelling at this particular point in time and in such an extravagant way does raise some serious questions.

Just a few days ago, Muscat was ridiculed for visiting Betlehem together with the Foreign Minister, a trip that was paid for by us taxpayers. A few days after that, Muscat went to the EU Council Summit, where he was reportedly snubbed by several of his European counterparts.

Muscat had said around a month ago that he would spend his last six weeks in office doing “mostly administrative” work, and that he would not be attending many events. But he is doing the opposite, it seems. Muscat seems to be intent on making the most of his last remaining days in office.

We are not saying that Prime Ministers should not go abroad – some of his predecessors also have a long list of official travels under their belt. But Muscat should not be trotting around the globe while his country burns in the fire of corruption.

The situation is simply surreal.