Outgoing President made 89 trips abroad

Malta’s President, Marie Louise Coleiro Preca, who on Thursday ends her five-year stint at San Anton Palace, made 89 trips abroad during her term of office, costing taxpayers around €2.5 million in travel expenses, The Sunday Times of Malta revealed. An exercise carried out by the newspaper during the past weeks shows that the President clogged up over 200,000 air miles in five years, with most of her travels in Europe. However, other overseas appointments saw President Coleiro Preca and her entourage travel long haul, at least once a year to the United States, mainly to attend appointments related to the United Nations. She also visited Australia and Canada. Dr Coleiro Preca also paid official visits to Chile and to Ghana and travelled three times to Iceland, mainly to attend conferences, as well as to Azerbaijan, for an UN forum and to Dubai where she led a business delegation. Based on the weekly publication of the President’s engagements in The Sunday Times of Malta, statistics show that London and Brussels were the President’s most frequent destinations. While most of the UK trips were related to the President visiting Maltese patients in various UK hospitals, the...