The elusive audit that Konrad Mizzi had commissioned back in February 2016 has been ready for the last five months, a fact Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Dr Mizzi have kept up their sleeves despite the continued barrage of media questions about the promised audit’s status.

The audit, published by Dr Mizzi on Monday, was signed off by Crowe Horwath New Zealand Audit Partnership on 21 September 2016, even though Prime Minister Joseph Muscat on 7 October had still been describing the audit as “a work in progress”.

This newsroom had reported in early January that Dr Mizzi’s audit had been signed, sealed and delivered and that its release had been carefully planned to coincide with this week’s fact-finding mission by the European Parliament’s PANA Committee, aka the Panama Papers Committee.

And, just as reported, Dr Mizzi’s long-awaited audit was presented to the committee on Monday, and it was published through the Department of Information shortly after.

The audit’s sign-off date of 21 September shows that it had been at least seven months in the making, if it had been commissioned in February 2016 as Dr Mizzi had pledged.

On 7 October, Dr Muscat had even said that the audit was “still a work in progress”.  He told the press during another round of questioning over Dr Mizzi’s audit that, “What I can say that it is a firm of international repute [that is carrying out the audit].

“While the audit is still work in progress, the studies have been completed. I think it’s best that everything is announced together.”

Dr Mizzi in January told the European Parliament’s Industry, Research and Energy Committee said that he was sure that “the truth will come out soon”, without referring to the fact that he must have already had the audit in hand.

The subject of Dr Mizzi’s audit into his New Zealand Trust and accompanying Panamanian company, Hearnville Inc, has been something of a cat-and-mouse game over the last year, with the media having persistently demanded answers on the status of the audit, and on the name of the audit firm Dr Mizzi had contracted to carry out the job.

On 28 September, when the audit had already been signed off, Dr Muscat had been quizzed about its status.  Asked when the audit would be published Dr Muscat did not commit to a timeframe but said the report would be published soon. “These things take time,” he said, referring to audit process. “What I am sure of is that the report will be published once it is completed. If anything, the fact that it is taking time shows that things are being taken seriously.”

On 6 October, Dr Mizzi had even refused to name the firm when questioned in court, saying that doing so would apply subject the firm contracted to carry out the job to unnecessary pressure – even though, it now transpires – the job had already been completed.

Testifying in a libel case Dr Mizzi had instituted against PN Deputy Leader Beppe Fenech Adami, Dr Mizzi was asked to name the company, but he simply replied by telling Dr Fenech Adami’s lawyer to “ask the Prime Minister”. He then said he did not wish to name the company because he did not want to put the firm under any undue pressure.

Dr Fenech Adami’s lawyer, Joe Zammit Maempel, insisted that he would not put any pressure on the company and said he wanted to know the name simply to ascertain that an audit was, in actual fact, truly taking place.  Still Dr Mizzi had refused to answer the question.

A similar audit for Office of the Prime Minister chief of staff Keith Schembri’s New Zealand Haast Trust and his accompanying Panamanian company, Tillgate Inc, was also published on Monday and it was signed off by the same firm. That document was dated 12 October. 

Both Dr Mizzi’s and Mr Schembri’s New Zealand-Panama financial structures had been set up contemporaneously.