Ah, so that’s why this government pulled Jaime Cremona out of a hat and made him ambassador to Saudi

When Jaime Cremona’s appointment as Malta’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia was announced, I wondered what hat they’d pulled him out of, and what for.

The man is close to 80.

He was at St Edward’s with Maurice Calleja (another fossil hacked out of the cave for a government appointment) and Martin Scicluna (still waiting for his), for heaven’s sake.

He was obstetrician to the Saudi royal court half a lifetime ago, and when, after he retired and returned to Malta, the Nationalist government sought to have him appointed ambassador there something like two decades ago, Saudi Arabia’s agrement was not forthcoming. He was spurned.

Perhaps they didn’t approve of having him return as ambassador to the very same court which he served as inspector of wombs and private parts and so on.

But now they’ve changed their minds.

In any case, I wondered why on earth they’d dragged him out of the oldies cupboard when there are so many seasoned career diplomats at the Foreign Ministry, many of whom have actually been dragged back to base from their overseas posts. What was the connection? Why did they have to give him something, an ambassadorship?

You always have to ask why. There’s always a reason. These choices are not random.

Turns out the government didn’t do it to give him a position with access in Saudi. Jaime Cremona, our new ambassador to Saudi Arabia, is on the ‘management team’ of Shiv Nair’s company, La Vallette Corporation Ltd.

You could ask, of course, what Shiv Nair wants with this codger on his management team – simple, the name, CV and status. It looks good when your business depends on impressing the leaders of third-world and developing nations.

For the same reason he’s got ‘ambassador Wilfred Kenely’ (who used to fix the computers when they broke down at the newspaper for which I work, before his mysteriously stellar rise), Brigadier this and whatever that.