The Standards Commissioner’s report on Joseph Muscat’s Dubai trip earlier this year has raised more questions than answers.

Muscat and family had jetted off to the middle eastern nation earlier this year, a couple of weeks before he stepped down as Prime Minister, and racked up a travel bill that is higher than what the average Maltese worker earns in a year.

When asked who had purchased the flights, Muscat had told a reporter that it was “none of your business” and added that they had been paid for from “personal private funds.”

His unsatisfactory reply had led to a complaint and a request for George Hyzler to investigate.

That report came out on Friday. Hyzler confirmed that the flights had cost a whopping €21k but it turned out that Muscat had not paid for them out of his own pocket. It was confirmed that the tickets were purchased by someone in Jordan but the commissioner accepted Muscat’s request to refrain from naming the person who paid for them.

He also concluded that, because the flights were not paid for from public funds, there was no breach of ethics.

Now, George Hyzler may have been satisfied with Muscat’s explanations, but we are certainly not satisfied with the report and its missing details.

We would actually like to know who dished out €21,000 for Muscat and his family to travel in style and why Muscat had initially claimed to have paid for the flights from his own money. We would also like to know how the commissioner came to the conclusion that there was no obligation to the purchaser (since we have no idea who this person is).

In fact, when noting that Muscat’s reply to journalists should have been phrased “less arrogantly,” Hyzler noted that politicians “are accountable to the public, and particularly in light of the particular circumstances the country was experiencing.”

Forgive us for being curious, but how can we be assured that there was no breach of ethics if we do not know all the details?

This was, after all, not the first time that Muscat accepted gifts. Last week, the same Standards Commissioner said Muscat had breached ethics when Muscat accepted three expensive bottles of wine from alleged Daphne murder mastermind Yorgen Fenech, so how is this different? The fact that the tickets were purchased in Jordan further raises suspicion.

It seems that denial of information has become a norm in this country. To give another example, the infamous VGH Memorandum of Understanding that had gone missing was found earlier this week.

The MoU was proof of collusion between Government and VGH and vitiated the hospitals’ concession agreement, the National Audit Office said.

Joseph Muscat and Konrad Mizzi both said they were unaware of the MoU, but someone must have signed it on behalf of government. The Office of the Prime Minister has so far refused to publish the document and has not answered questions sent by this newsroom (we asked who the signatories are). So how can we be sure that neither of the above were actually involved? Few people believe that the Prime Minister and Energy Minister of the time were completely unaware and uninvolved and, if we are to believe that they were not, we need to see the recently unearthed document. We cannot just take their word for it.

This newsroom experienced another case where important information was withheld. The government has refused a Freedom of Information request by The Malta Independent asking for the publication of information relating to persons of trust and persons in positions of trust.

Such requests were accepted in the past and the information was provided, but not this time.

Effectively, we have a Freedom of Information system that does not work, with the majority of requests denied. We have become accustomed to waiting for 40 days after filing a request, only to be given some stupid excuse as to why the requested information cannot be provided.

Some argue that the PN’s internal struggle is serving as a smokescreen to cover up government scandals. But the truth of the matter is that this administration’s lack of transparency is a worse threat to democracy and the right to information.