Crane Currency, Joseph Muscat and Keith Schembri

The last time the Prime Minister was seen in public with his chief of staff was back in September, at a press conference to announce that Boston-based banknote printer Crane Currency will be setting up shop in Malta. It was presented to the press – and through them, to the public – as a great coup for the government which works so very hard to create jobs for the starving Maltese.

What rubbish. The Prime Minister made a point of thanking and praising his corrupt henchman, who luxuriates in the ownership of a bevy of secret offshore companies sheltered by nominee shareholders and directors, and that should have been enough of a giveaway as to what was going on. I then found out, after a tip-off, that Schembri’s business – the legitimate one, that is – is the business representative for a major company that produces security printing machinery for banknotes.

Then Schembri went off the radar because of his serious illness, and while tweeting merrily from his sickbed or sofa, has put himself out of reach of further questions, including questions about the nature and duration of his indisposition.

Since then I’ve thinking about all that beavering away they did for Crane Currency in particular, this government which has made absolutely no effort to, and shown no interest in, doing anything to generate productive investment in Malta, preferring to sell citizenship and residence visas instead, which is in turn driving the resources-devouring real estate market. Why were the Prime Minister and Keith Schembri, and Schembri in particular, so keen to strike a deal with Crane Currency? You just have to be really suspicious about it.

Then yesterday things took a turn for the worse, as The Sunday Times revealed a big shocker. The government – for which read Muscat and Schembri – had agreed to build, at taxpayers’ expense, a €27 million plant for Crane Currency, to guarantee €54 million in loans from the Bank of Valletta (exactly as they did for the power-station builders and Labour Party donors, Electrogas Malta Ltd), will no doubt have made the necessary arm-twisting arrangements with the Labour-friendly bank which has also given Schembri himself an unsecured €4 million loan facility for his business, and will be subsidising Crane Currency’s interest payments.

Sitting where Crane Currency was sitting at the negotiation table, what’s not to like? But that’s not the point, is it. The real point is: why have Schembri and Muscat pulled out all the stops, using public money, to help Crane Currency in particular? When they did the same for Electrogas Malta, the answer to that question was obvious. But with Crane Currency, it is not so obvious.

Keith Schembri, wearing his Kasco hat, taking a whacking standard cut on the invoice value of the banknote-printing machinery purchased might be the answer if we know what amounts are involved, but I’m not convinced this is the whole explanation.

To make matters infinitely worse, the Prime Minister actually lied – you know, for a change – when a journalist asked him point blank, outside another Crane Currency even last week, where he was conspicuously not accompanied by his chief of staff, whether his government had agreed to guarantee the company’s bank loans.

“Assolutament le,” (absolutely not) he said, putting on his best stern expression but tellingly looking away when he said it. His capacity for lying with such ease is unnerving because it makes you, inevitably, wonder what sort of sociopathic character we have inflicted on ourselves for five years and possibly for another five after that.

People who lie with such amoral conviction generally end up on the run or in jail for having convinced those who trusted them to part with their money in elaborate pyramid schemes. Muscat has ended up Prime Minister instead, where he is in the perfect position to raid the sweet-shop while leaving people confused as to the nature of his crimes or whether they are crimes at all.

Joseph Muscat signs a deal with Crane Currency, on behalf of the government of Malta, while his chief of staff Keith Schembri (far right) looks on.