All in all, just about everyone in Malta who has been invited to speak with the European Parliament’s PANA Committee when it comes to town next week has accepted the invitation – from the finance minister to the police commissioner and from the Financial Intelligence Analysis Authority to the Malta Financial Services Authority.

And as such it has to be said that the Maltese authorities have, by and large, been just as cooperative as they should be with a committee of this calibre and scope.

The key phrase here, however, is ‘by and large’ because there have been two notable exceptions on the part of the government, and two on the part of the private sector.  Those are, as far as the government is concerned, the Minister within the Office of the Prime Minister Konrad Mizzi and the Office of the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri and, on the part of the private sector, Nexia BT’s Brain Tonna and Karl Cini.

If anyone needs any refreshing, it was Nexia BT that had designed Mizzi and Schembri’s offshore structures, with their companies in Panama and their trusts in New Zealand that were set up soon after the 2013 general election, only to be exposed further down the line through the leak of the Panama Papers.

The Nexia BT pair has flatly refused to speak directly to the committee and has instead suggested the committee sends them written questions.

As for Mizzi and Schembri, they are still playing hard to get.  This newspaper had asked both Mizzi and Schembri last summer whether they will make themselves available to the EP ‘Panama Papers’ committee if summoned.

Rather inexplicably, both gave the very same carbon copy answer to this newspaper: “If I receive such a request and justification, I will reply accordingly.”  Looking at the answer the question begs: what, exactly, is that supposed to mean? Does it mean that “If they ask, I will give them an answer”?

It is more than obvious that both Mizzi and Schembri are most reticent about answering for their deeds before the glare of the PANA Committee members, and that they will, in the meantime, seek ways to wriggle out of this most uncomfortable prospect.

Now just this week we are informed that Mizzi and Schembri have actually replied to their formal invitations to speak with the committee when it visits Malta on Monday, by promising, wait for it… to give a reply soon.

One is not hard pressed to imagine that both men are somewhat busy individuals, but knowing for at least as long as we have that the committee will visit Malta on 20 February and that it will certainly be soliciting a meeting with them, it is not as though they need to check their diaries so as to accommodate a sudden request.

They clearly appear to be buying time and staving off what could very well be their eventual answer in the negative, which will not go down all too well in Malta or elsewhere after all that has come to pass since last February.

Such a move would do the government they serve any good at all, it would only reinforce the perception that the Maltese government, when it comes down to it, is about as transparent as the power station contracts it published on Tuesday.

Should they eventually balk at the invitation, it will send a very bad message indeed.