The report which is being drawn up by three retired judges tasked with looking into allegations surrounding the shots fired by the driver of National Security Minister Manuel Mallia last week will be published with immediate effect, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat insisted this evening.

Speaking during today's edition of TVM's Dissett, hosted by Public Broadcasting Services' head of news Reno Bugeja, Dr Muscat insisted that it was in his interest that the truth about the case comes out.

Paul Sheehan, a police officer who was tasked to drive Dr Mallia and was authorised to carry a firearm, used it to fire a number of shots at a car which clipped the mirror of the ministerial car on 19 November: he has since been accused of attempted murder.

In its initial statement, the government portrayed the victim as the aggressor, stating that Mr Sheehan fired "warning shots" after a hit-and-run, and Dr Muscat insisted that he felt betrayed as this was the information he originally received. He said that it was up to the inquiry to determine who the source of this information was.

Asked whether Dr Mallia should resign until the inquiry is completed, Dr Muscat said that such practices were a "Nationalist farce" in a clear reference to the resignation of then-Parliamentary Secretary Chris Said when he had been charged with perjury, only to be reinstated upon his acquittal.

"This is not a report that will take months or years to conclude, but just two weeks, and in the meantime, the minister will continue to carry out his duties," he told Mr Bugeja.

He said that one then had to consider the findings of the report, but insisted that it was certainly premature for the opposition to present a motion of no confidence before it was concluded.

Dr Muscat deflected a question which compared his decision to ask then-deputy leader Anġlu Farrugia to resign over a statement compared to his reluctance to act now, making no mention of the former case and stating simply that in situations where things were not clear, one had to ask for an investigation to determine what had happened.

The Prime Minister also said that he was concerned about how people like Mr Sheehan ended up in an armed escort. When Mr Bugeja pointed out that according to people he had spoken to, it was not done to have people act as drivers and armed escorts at the same time - even describing the situation as farcical - Dr Muscat simply said that this had to be determined by experts.

Energy Minister to miss own deadline to present new power station deadline

The programme touched into a number of other issues, including the government's energy plans and the postponement of the original March 2015 deadline for the private construction of a new power station.

Last month, Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi had said that he will be in a position to give an exact timeframe by the end of November, but Dr Muscat confirmed that the public will have to wait a little longer: until the Energy Ministry's financial estimates are discussed in Parliament on Tuesday, 2 December.

Dr Muscat added that the new timeline has already been established and that he already knew what it was, but said that he would be letting Dr Mizzi reveal it and not jump the gun. However, he did stress that the project would be delayed by months, and not years.

The Prime Minister also insisted that he was saving money by granting chairmanships of various authorities to government backbenchers.

But his arguments appear to be based simply on the fact that this government has not appointed parliamentary assistants, as the previous government had done, rather than by paying backbenchers less than any other person would have earned. The fact that the present cabinet is considerably larger also appears to have been overlooked.

Mr Bugeja also questioned the government's apparent lack of transparency when it came to major agreements, specifically mentioning the agreements with Henley and Partners - the concessionaires of the Individual Investor Programme - ElectroGas Malta and Shanghai Electric, which will be acquiring a 33% stake in Enemalta.

But Dr Muscat insisted that the Henley contract has not been published because members of the opposition were linked to a court case filed by Henley's competitors Arton, in which it asks for the contract to be declared null.

He also insisted that if the BWSC contract signed by the previous government had commercially sensitive details which could not be published, the ElectroGas contract was far more sensitive, but insisted that he was committed to publish details that were not sensitive. However, he could not provide a timeline, stating simply that details would be published at an opportune time.