Earlier this week our sister daily newspaper asked the question: “Will the real finance minister please stand up?” And we got our answer on Tuesday when the Government Gazette reassigned the regulation of financial services from the finance minister to the Prime Minister.

The change in portfolio, which was highlighted by another section of the media yesterday, has raised eyebrows, especially in the wake of so much turmoil when it comes to the regulation of the very sensitive minefield of a sector.

But, somewhat strangely, the government has denied what is clearly written in black and white in its own Government Gazette: that in the wake of the last election, on 17 June, the assignment of ministerial duties clearly showed that the regulation of financial services fell squarely under the remit of the finance minister. However, Tuesday’s issue of the Government Gazette placed that portfolio under the remit of the Prime Minister himself.

It is no secret that the finance minister has been under extreme duress of late given the multiple and multifaceted problems facing the financial services industry, but it is also a well known fact that Malta is currently on the cusp of venturing into areas that few countries have dared to tread.

But while the government has either skirted or ignored the issue, the fact of the matter remains that somewhere down the line, a decision was made to strip the regulation of the sector from the finance minister’s portfolio and to place it directly under the wing of the Prime Minister.

That, of course, is the Prime Minister’s absolute prerogative. But what we find to be strange is that there was no announcement of any sort made, especially considering the microscope that the sector has been placed under lately.

After all, former Prime Ministers have taken on certain ministerial portfolios in times of trouble. This Prime Minister’s predecessor had after all done just that on two occasions – once when he had taken the former Malta Environment and Planning Authority under his wing and again when he took the entire finance ministry back during the 2008 financial crisis.

So what, exactly, necessitated this most recent move?

There are two schools of thought doing the rounds at the moment. Either the finance minister has made too much of a fuss, behind closed doors of course, about the failed oversight, regulation and supervision of the financial services sector, or the Prime Minister is of the belief that the finance minister has made a mess of oversight and cracking down on the sector.

Either which way, it seems the finance minister has been relegated to the role of a bookkeeper and budget balancer, which, admittedly, he is very good at. But if this were to be the case, it would be a real shame for this government as the finance minister is, apart from supervisory shortcomings that have been highlighted so much lately, widely respected and a person who lends an aura of credibility to an administration that has otherwise been wrapped up in financial scandal after scandal.

In the middle of last week, our daily edition had questioned who the real finance minister was after government public relations people appear to have tightly controlled two very different ratings from two different, reputable, credit rating agencies.

One that raised some very serious issues, not least of which was their highlighting of the increased reputational and operational risks Malta’s banking sector is facing on account of regulatory issues concerning one wayward and infamous bank. They increased the country’s banking sector’s overall risk rating by 50 per cent, while another issued just a couple days later praised the sector.

No prizes will be awarded to anyone guessing which one the finance ministry ignored and which one it leapt on with not one by two separate press releases because the answer is a no-brainer.

Perhaps the Prime Minister just believed the finance minister was no longer up to the regulatory job.

Or perhaps he has taken the regulation of the financial services sector under his wing in just the same way he had placed Konrad Mizzi under his personal supervision and within his own ministry – as a minister without portfolio – after the public bayed for blood after the Panama Papers revelations.

Either way, better and proper explanations should be forthcoming from the government if it is to be taken seriously, rather than sceptically.