The answer to this question is: because he’s corrupt, and that’s why he took the job

Why would a “successful businessman” take up a position as chief of staff to the Prime Minister? Well, exactly.

Imagine, say, Alec Mizzi ‘letting go’ of Alf. Mizzi & Sons and leaving it in the hands of caretakers so that he can take up a position as chief of staff to Prime Minister Busuttil. It’s not going to happen, is it – and if it did, can you imagine the fall-out. Or Marin Hili, for example – I mention these two because they are names that will be familiar to many, but there are many other people who lead businesses and who will never consider the position of chief of staff to the prime minister (and nor will any leader of the Nationalist Party consider them).

The newspapers would be hysterical and Malta Today would publish a pull-out supplement of ranting and raving every Sunday. But then Malta Today, which ground its axe every Sunday for years about Prime Minister Fenech Adami’s chief of staff, who left that post 12 years ago, and continues to do so sporadically even today, has been suspiciously silent and circumspect about Keith Schembri and is visibly defensive about Adrian Hillman. But that’s another story.

The fact is that successful businessmen run their businesses. They don’t stop running their businesses so that they can be bridesmaid to a prime minister on a government salary. And if they decide to become bridesmaid to a prime minister, there is just one reason: they see it an excellent platform from which they can grow their business and their Dubai/Panama/Caribbean bank accounts by corrupt means, insider dealing and trading in influence, by grafts and kickbacks.

Kurt Sansone has written a good appraisal of the situation, but anybody who hasn’t got cotton-wool for brains knows exactly why Keith Schembri hid his identity until he was rumbled first at home in Malta and then on a global basis.

We also know why he was so keen to get into government alongside his mate Joseph Muscat. When they said they were going to run the country like a business, they meant it: a personal business.