If there is one person for whom the Parliamentary Summer Recess has come not a moment too soon, that is Minister Chris Cardona.

Here was a person who was well on his way to become a target figure for the Opposition, the kind of person the Opposition, its media, bloggers et al like to stick pins in, throw darts at.

He is reported to have the shortest of fuses and, cornered by the media over the week, was none too gentle or astute with his replies.

So the summer respite will hopefully pull off the dogs.

Dr Cardona has two particular dogs tugging at his legs at present.

First, like so many of his colleagues, there are glaring inconsistencies in the list of assets he has submitted to Parliament. It would seem he earned just €3,000 from his profession as lawyer in 2012 while having a debt amounting to €577,000.

One must admit here that several of his Cabinet colleagues have even bigger issues to answer for.

Secondly, there is the far more serious issue which seems to have led to the resignations of Emanuel Ellul and his assistant from the Privatisation Unit, thereby leading to the practically closing down of the unit.

As reported elsewhere, Dr Cardona seems to have interfered in a classification of lawyer firms to be associated with work regarding yet more casinos in Malta. While the PU had listed the tenderers in one way, the list was upended as a result of a ministerial direct intervention and a different firm selected as the preferred bidder.

Whatever the circumstances and whatever explanation Prime Minister Muscat has come up with to justify the action taken by Minister Cardona, common prudence and common sense would seem to dictate that a minister who until four months ago was a lawyer, should have held back from an issue regarding various lawyer firms.

Secondly, there was collateral damage to factor in: the resignation of Mr Ellul and a mainstay of his remaining team. As this paper said some days ago, Mr Ellul, who rose from the dockyard to become Central Bank Governor and who has led the PU, to which he was appointed by Alfred Sant, is a man deeply respected by practically the entire country, a man proved to be ‘super partes’ and surely one the government and the country can afford to lose his services.

Dr Cardona is young and this is his first ministerial responsibility. He must learn, before it is too late, that along with ministerial power should come ministerial responsibility and that a person with authority, even and above all a minister must learn to avoid throwing his ministerial weight around. In the short term, this may bring advantages with it (and our history has shown that certain people gravitate to such persons) but ultimately this will only serve to bring disrepute not just on the person involved but also on the government he is part of.