A corruption-and-abuse dilemma for the prime minister

Joseph Muscat makes his real money from the sale of chemicals and other materials used in the manufacture of fireworks.

In his declaration of assets to parliament, he does not list a shareholding in or income from this pyrotechnics business, but the company is the dominant market player, his father is the sole owner, and the prime minister is the much-petted only child.

The prime minister never bought his own house. That’s why, famously, he said in a television interview that the most expensive thing he ever bought was a handbag for his wife, while Lawrence Gonzi immediately replied, to the same question, that it was his house. By the age of 22, he already had a house, built for him and paid for by his parents, on land adjacent to their own home. We know this because there was a MEPA application out at the time for a swimming-pool in the garden of that house, made in his own name.

There is no doubt at all that his father – Salvu Muscat of Hal Lija, aka Id-Doggy – pays for many of the things that make his son’s comfortable life possible.

And even if that were not the case, the prime minister is the sole heir to this lucrative pyrotechnics-supply business and has every interest in protecting its revenue and market.

For many, many years, Michael Falzon, who as parliamentary secretary for government property reports directly to the prime minister, who is minister responsible for government property, was the lawyer and main lobbyist for the Malta Pyrotechnics Association. He gave that up only when he became parliamentary secretary, and almost certainly still advises them unofficially.

Falzon is also obsessed with fireworks himself and for years now has been the main man on this at the August feast of Stella Maris Parish in Sliema.

When the Labour Party was elected to power, one of the first things it did was to appoint Michael Falzon chairman of a Malta Environment and Planning Authority working group about fireworks factories. Michael Farrugia was the parliamentary secretary responsible for the MEPA at the time.

You would automatically assume that when it comes to controlling Michael Falzon and pushing him to resign, the prime minister has all the leverage because he is the prime minister. Not so. Michael Falzon is the one with by far the stronger hand. He is well-integrated with the only customers (and sole source of revenue) of the Muscat family business and has lobbied for their interests for years. He is also one of them. He can do enormous damage to Muscat’s father’s sales ledger by directing the members of the Malta Pyrotechnics Association to buy their raw materials elsewhere, or to set up a cooperative between themselves, import their requirements directly, and cut out the Muscat middleman altogether.

And that’s why the prime minister has an enormous dilemma (to add to the rest of them): does he allow Michael Falzon to damage his government, or does he allow Michael Falzon to damage his father’s business, to which he is heir and from which he benefits already?