Minister Konrad Mizzi is at it again, actively evading – read ‘hiding’ - from sections of the independent press that have some very serious and pointed questions to ask the minister.

We have been asking those questions for literally years now, questions that have not ever been answered to anywhere near even a modicum of satisfaction, and those questions have become all the more pressing since last Friday’s power station kickback revelations.

But since then the minister appears to have sunk still deeper into his hibernation away from the media that will undoubtedly be asking some rather pesky questions.

The minister, who the independent media have been salivating to get their figurative hands on since Friday’s bombshells, was at his hide-and-seek-game again yesterday when he paid a visit to the Malta Film Commission.

Needless to say, there was no press call and it seems the only newsrooms invited to the event the state broadcaster PBS and of his own political party, ONE News.  Normally ministers' events are announced via the Department of Information.

Such was not the case yesterday and we at this newspaper only learned of the minister’s visit post factum, from photos he uploaded to one of his social media accounts.

Is this really acceptable behaviour from an elected official of government who has some serious deeds and accusations to answer for?  We think not, not by any stretch of the imagination.

And now it appears that the minister’s stonewalling of the independent media is not only about saving face before foreign dignitaries.  Yesterday’s event appears to have been an all-Maltese affair.

Not like last summer when, for the first time since its inception, journalists were not invited down to The Granaries to have a look at the preparations underway for the Isle of MTV concert, or for that event he had with Nickelodeon.

In a nutshell, the reason, we strongly suspect, that the press is not being invited to these events is that the minister is unwilling to answer another round of questions on that same old boring subject: his highly suspect financial wheelings and dealings.

He was not willing to face the usual uncomfortable questions the press throws at him every time he shows his face in public.  Before last week, he did not want those annoying questions about Panama and 17 Black to come up in front of the foreign dignitaries he was hosting, now it seems he doesn’t want the questions asked irrespective of the crowd before him.

And this in itself shows how completely untenable his position as tourism minister actually is.  Even if one were to assume for a minute that Mizzi is completely guiltless, for a minute, his position is still completely untenable.

That is because everything that he does or says is superseded by the Panama Papers questions.  The ramifications of the actions of Mizzi and his cohorts, and the fact that they have gone completely unpunished, are leaving some very serious residual problems for the country.  Mizzi was, after all, the only European Union minister exposed by the Panama Papers and as such, he is the only EU minister to have been investigated as a result of those revelations, and as a result, Malta is the only country embedded in this quagmire.

It seems every time he sets a foot in public the press is onto Mizzi like a pack of wolves.  And yes, if the press had gone to the event yesterday, they certainly would have bombarded him with those pesky questions, and they will at every chance they get, they are compelled and duty-bound to do so.

Until Mizzi answers those questions, resigns or falls on his sword, those questions will not stop.  A minister who cannot face the media, for one reason or another is certainly not fit for purpose.

And that is precisely one of the reasons, certainly not the biggest reason but one of them, which makes his position so untenable.