The Prime Minister has been in hiding for an entire week now, a week in which his minister Konrad Mizzi has been hauled over hot coals by the press and the public at large on account of the dubious trust he set up in New Zealand and the even more dubious associated company in the fiscal grey area that is Panama.

The last time he was seen in public, in fact, was one week ago today - the day after the news of his minister’s overseas financial adventures was half-revealed through very selective information given to a single media outlet.  That appearance, at the university, turned out to be a public relations nightmare.  Hounded by the press, he had made a number of somewhat incredible statements, not least of which was that he found nothing wrong with the fact that Dr Mizzi had chosen Panama of all places to open up a company.

After that exemplary faux pax, Dr Muscat has noticeably withdrawn from public appearances and has not shown his face to the media since, except for his Sunday sermon to the party faithful, during which he reportedly simply barged through the waiting media scrum awaiting his arrival.

Perhaps the Prime Minister had believed that Dr Mizzi’s disclosures to the press on Saturday about his overseas fiscal structures may have cooled matters down to a certain extent.  Perhaps he even believed a later statement by Dr Mizzi that he would close down the Panama company - even though the Prime Minister had, days earlier, said he saw nothing wrong with the Panama set-up - would help placate the press. 

He was patently wrong on both counts.

In fact, these statements have only raised more questions, questions that the Prime Minister is clearly unable and/or unwilling to answer.

Now his chief of staff has been brought into the mix after blogger and this newspaper’s columnist Daphne Caruana Galizia outed him for having created the exact same financial set-up at the same time, just as she had done with Dr Mizzi’s affairs.

The media is also champing at the bit to get some kind of comment out of Finance Minister Edward Scicluna.  The media would, of course, like to hear Prof. Scicluna’s thoughts on the fact that a government minister has effectively given Malta’s cherished financial services sector a vote of no confidence, let alone the upright finance minister’s thoughts on the far more thornier aspects of his fellow minister’s overseas ventures.

The media had eagerly awaited a chance to quiz the finance minister on these points on Monday, but that press conference was inexplicably cancelled at the last minute.

Given the way things are looking, it appears to be a case of government omerta’ when it comes to discussing the Konrad Mizzi case.  The government is instead leaving the stage to Dr Mizzi, and apparently to Dr Mizzi alone.

Added to all this is the fact that this newspaper has been soliciting an interview with the Prime Minister for a rather long time now, an interview marking this month’s occasion of the government’s third anniversary.

In actual fact, it also has to be noted that this newspaper’s requests to interview the Prime Minister have been consistently turned down or, worse still, left unacknowledged literally for years.  The last time we were granted an interview with the Prime Minister was, in fact, back in March 2014.

Besides the fact that the Prime Minister’s absence from the public sphere over this timeframe speaks volumes for the Dr Mizzi situation, it also shows extraordinarily poor leadership.

It is in times like these that the nation needs a Prime Minister to stand up and address a thorny issue in unequivocal terms.  This he has not done, and the longer he allows the state of affairs to fester, the longer it will take his government to recover from the blows it has been dealt, if it is to recover at all.

Instead, Dr Muscat has gone from a Prime Minister in waiting three years ago – largely thanks to his energy plan launched alongside then new politician Konrad Mizzi, to a Prime Minister in hiding – again, thanks to that very same person.