Sad to see

Before 2013, the San Antonio group used to regularly invite a small group of journalists and stockbrokers to a business breakfast to announce the financial results of the preceding half year

The main speakers were people who today are the protagonists of life in Malta. The meetings used to be chaired by Professor Edward Scicluna, while two other speakers or participants would be Tony Zahra and Seabank's Silvio Debono.

Today, as we all know, Scicluna is Malta’s Minister for Finance, Mr Zahra heads the MHRA and fulminates against 'project fear', as he calls whoever calls for a prudent and rigorous application of the anti-Covid protocols. Mr Debono, having opened Malta’s biggest hotel, is deep in negotiations to build a far bigger hotel on the other side of the island.

In these meetings and elsewhere, Prof Scicluna was always the perfect gentleman, courteous and humorous. As a minister he has always remained so in his dealings with me even though our paths crossed every so often.

That is why I was shocked and dismayed at the poor show he put up when questioned in court in the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry.

Now, after all these years we come to know the Muscat administration had a small kitchen Cabinet and he was no part of it, even when matters were being discussed that involved his ministerial remit.

This was the first time Scicluna had spoken out and he kept supporting the government through many no confidence votes.

His replies were universally termed 'weak-kneed '. He compounded the damage by speaking about the money he lost by leaving Brussels and coming to Malta.

It’s a pity to see a man I used to respect fall so low. He was far better when he fitted in the chairman role together with the professorship at the university. Like many before and after him, he rose beyond his level of competence.

It is only now, that Joseph Muscat has been removed together with his main aides that Scicluna found the courage to speak up. Had he done so earlier, he himself says, he would have had to resign.

Let this be a lesson for all ministers of all time, present or future. Any future explanation will always fall flat. And people will always believe you had your own interests at the back of your mind.

Right now, there are a couple of ministers in the Abela Cabinet who ought to be asking themselves these questions considering the collapse of the anti-Covid protocols, the steep rise in the number of infected persons, the rise of people who have had to be recovered and the number of countries which have shut their doors on us.

Sooner or later these ministers too will be asked to justify their actions or inactions. And if they will not be able to come up with a response better than Scicluna's they will share in his ignominy.