The general public may well think that the Panama Papers issue is well-night driven into the ground and dead, and that the situation in the country has rather calmed down.

But wonders never cease. Yesterday evening’s parliamentary sittings provided a series of further episodes which show the disarray in the government’s administration of the common good.

There was, as is reported on today’s back page, a further sitting of the Public Accounts Committee which explored more the dubious background to the Gaffarena- Michael Falzon case.

At one point, the PAC heard the testimony of former Government Property Division official, Carmel Camilleri, who was the director of Estate Management before he resigned in the wake of the case. Those who were attentively following the session must have seen the head of the Civil Service, Mario Cutajar, look towards the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance Alfred Camilleri and exchange a wry smile plus some comments that were obviously not heard.

They had every reason to exchange that wry smile for what the PAC was hearing shows the sorry state to which the Civil Service, specifically the handling of public property, has been allowed to fall.

We heard how a rather junior official, a political appointee, Clint Scerri, who served as the liaison between Parliamentary Secretary Michael Falzon and the department, had the run of the department, pushing, pushing, and pushing many times accompanied by Marco Gaffarena as if the department was their own home.

For all that the government side, specifically Minister Owen Bonnici and former minister Charles Mangion, tried to water down what the committee was hearing by saying this was all ‘as usual’, the members of the public who were hearing must have been thoroughly shocked at this way of administering the public good.

After all, the rest of us work hard, pay our taxes, and try and keep our heads above the water, despite all the difficulties we face but it seems that there are others in this country of ours who have a different regime. Yesterday’s PAC heard how Marco Gaffarena and Clint Scerri themselves chose the properties that were to be exchanged. We do not dare do this in the private sector and the government which allows this state of affairs is clearly allowing, at least, widespread corruption.

Yesterday too, it was revealed by the Opposition leader that his driver had been cleared of all charges of tampering with the record of fuel consumption.

It is not enough to rejoice that the trauma the driver faced is now over.

We have to go back to the origin of this claim, some months back. Now we can see it was clearly an attempt to distort the attention of the public from what was uppermost in the public mind when the trumped-up charge was rushed through.

This has become a tool the government has grown adept at wielding – when the going gets hot, a diversionary tactic is found and all the government spin machine latches on to it and the gullible public switches its attention to the new scandal, conveniently (for the government) forgetting the scandal everybody was discussing just before the diversion occurred.

Again, all this goes to show how important it is for the public, and more, the opinion leaders, to keep their focus and to be aware of these diversionary games and beware of such tricks.