There was a haunted look on the Prime Minister's face as he allowed Michael Falzon next to him to cast doubts on the Auditor's report on the basis of which Dr Falzon had resigned.

There was the same haunted look on Dr Muscat's face the next day, as he assisted at the swearing-in of Dr Falzon's successor.

The Prime Minister's face, so ubiquitous on the media, has become the national weather-vane: one look at it and people know what's happening.

It wasn't exactly Dr Muscat's best birthday (Friday). On the contrary, on Wednesday - the feast of St Sebastian - he and Dr Falzon tied for the title of 'St Sebastian of the day' with arrows coming from all directions.

We know the facts as they are told to us. But we do not know what lies far beyond our gaze. In this case, the report of the National Audit Office (NAO) makes riveting reading, but don't just stop at what the media has reported regarding the conclusions of the report, nor just at the executive summary. Read the whole report, blow after damning blow, and see for yourselves the mess that it has uncovered.

And don't be sidetracked by the mutual accusations between the parties - of which today there will probably be a surfeit. Their aim is to stop us from thinking clearly.

It is absolutely clear, from such a report, that someone had to pay for this mess. Dr Falzon has now paid. Maybe the Prime Minister, Dr Falzon's immediate superior with regard to the Lands Department, should pay as well.

What I find riveting is beyond this:

1.                 The Prime Minister, after all, did not carry out the rumoured reshuffle.

2.                 Why Dr Schembri?

We are used to hearing - over and over again - that the appointment of ministers is the Prime Minister's prerogative. This is as far as the theory goes. In practice, however, any Prime Minister is far more conditioned and restricted than many of us realise and this is especially so when it comes to forcing people to resign.

The speculation in the media regarding a possible reshuffle implied a possible rejuvenation of the Cabinet in view of the coming election. It may be that the reshuffle is only postponed (or it may indeed happen between the writing of this article and the day it appears).

Dr Muscat rose to power through an ably-crafted coalition between Old Labour and the Moviment. There may be enough reasons for him to remove all those members of Cabinet whom he inherited from the Mintoff days in order to face the election with a youthful team.

In the end, however, he did nothing of the sort. Maybe a Cabinet reshuffle would have masked the severity of the Michael Falzon case but it was not to be, hence Dr Muscat's grimace or haunted look.

Once a reshuffle was not to be, a replacement had to be found for Dr Falzon. Deborah Schembri has come a long way since the days she emerged as part of the pro-divorce lobby. She has risen internally in the Party's parliamentary group as Deputy Whip and has occasionally held posts in the House of Representatives. Furthermore, she is a practicing lawyer and the post needs a legal person to manage it, as shown by the fact that the two previous incumbents were both lawyers.

On the other hand, Dr Schembri is without experience in the handling of the Civil Service or a government department.

The NAO report explains in quite clear terms the ramshackle, derelict situation at the Lands Department, which has been left understaffed for years and years. It is a specialised department and had to endure the huge workload of the Church land through the Joint Office. Moreover, the government owns a huge quantity of land and property and leases and/or sells in a vast variety of manners. The potential for mischief or fraud is enormous.

Whether or not it was Dr Schembri who sent in the police on her first day in office is not known. There have been resignations in the past and it seems there will be more resignations to come.

The Prime Minister praised the initiatives taken by Dr Falzon to bring some sort of order to the department, and these were not words of circumstance but the real truth. One remembers his explanations in Parliament with regard to some necessary reforms.

But what happened with the Gaffarena case shows how easy it is for all the goodwill in the world to come unstuck mostly by underlings, the warp and weft of the Ministry, the hangers-on that every administration seems to spawn.

We talk here about the present administration, for to bring to the fore the mistakes or worse committed by the previous one is trite and self-defeating. The number of people who have been placed in positions of trust by this administration must be a record. When they bring with them the interests of those who stand to gain and, more importantly, when they are relatively unsupervised and left to their own devices, only trouble can follow.

Yet, as Dr Schembri bravely tries to lock the stable door after the horse has bolted, the department must remain open and continue to go about its daily business.

So - why Dr Schembri, we asked. Yes, she has been one of the foremost backbenchers of this government, ready to intervene with her cogent arguments in debates. Besides, there are no more people with a legal background on the back benches, as far as I can see. The only questions I have are why the Prime Minister chose not to amalgamate the Lands Department in some Ministry (such as his?), why not transfer it to some other Ministry such as Justice, or why not transfer some Minister to head it up.

Maybe one answer to all this is that the rot is widening in the administration and the Prime Minister must surely know this. Take Mepa, another potential or - according to many - actual mess. The revelation by Alan Deidun that an objection raised by him brought the perpetrator in person to his doorstep is nothing new. It happens every day, and I myself happen to be a witness in such a case.

These are among the very clear reasons why the polls show Labour's lead to have been reduced to the margin of error. What we are seeing is the collapse of the huge majority Labour built up in 2013. The stench of rot fills the country and scandal after scandal breaks down the people's trust.

Bravely, as he will no doubt do today, Dr Muscat talks about the growth in the economy, spins further scandals from the bad old days of the PN administration but nothing will remove from people's memories the anguish, the anger and the inability to do otherwise, that we saw on his face last Tuesday.

He is no longer in control of his government, nor of his country. He is a fighter and will no doubt employ all the weapons at his disposal, but his ship has started to leak badly.

One would perhaps have expected this from a second-term or third-term administration. The wonder is that it is happening in the middle of the first.

[email protected]