Minister Konrad Mizzi won a libel case and has been crowing all over Facebook about it.
One would have thought this was a do-or-die libel case where his reputation was at stake.
It is what can be called a pyrrhic victory.
But just as the Panama team and its supporters on Sunday rejoiced after scoring one goal to England’s six, so too Konrad Mizzi rejoiced over a small, insignificant, victory at the Law Courts, yesterday augmented by a new crop of Labour appointees.
And to prove the rather juvenile mental structure of the minister, this is the same Konrad Mizzi who is and remains the only minister in the EU to have been found with an account in Panama, through the Panama Papers.
This is the same Konrad Mizzi who Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has not seen fit to remove in the face of national and international outrage.
The same Konrad Mizzi whose relations with chief of staff Keith Schembri has been called the biggest scandal in Maltese political history.
The same Konrad Mizzi who said he would close down his company in Panama after it had been audited by the Commissioner for Inland Revenue only for Maltese public opinion to find out this audit exercise would be a futile exercise due to Panama’s secrecy laws.
The same Konrad Mizzi who, together with Keith Schembri acquired a company in Panama a few days after the Labour Party won the 2013 election.
The same Konrad Mizzi who, on being appointed as health minister in 2014, embarked on a transformation of the health sector by means of a deal worth €200 million in a public-private partnership with Vitals Global Healthcare only for this partnership to collapse after some months.
The same Konrad Mizzi who Prime Minister Muscat, faced it would seem with a dearth of capable officials, has been appointing to many sensitive posts including not just the health ministry but also Air Malta – with some spectacular failures as in the days when the airline had not yet received its new plane and was thus forced to advertise on websites for a replacement one and when delays exploded all over Air Malta’s schedule.
Minister Mizzi is right to rejoice for a victory at a libel court is a victory. But any other man in his position and with all these scandals (and more) around his feet would probably stay quiet (if not retire from the battle, that is). It is extremely insensitive and offensive to public opinion for him to crow thus.