Since the Panama Papers scandal was unleashed onto the Maltese government one year ago this week, it has faced a constant barrage of questions from most sections of the Maltese media about the two leading government functionaries who were embroiled in the scandal – Minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri.

Those questions have been constantly deflected and continuously postponed. And until now, that has been where the matter stopped - until the European Parliament’s PANA Committee began sinking its teeth into the situation.

Now it is one thing to try to pull the wool over your own nation’s eyes, which the government has unsuccessfully attempted to do as far as much of the nation is concerned, but is quite another to attempt to fool MEPs representing 500 million European citizens who want answers for the corruption that was exposed through the Panama Papers leaks.

The truth is that apart from what has transpired locally, it has only been the PANA Committee that the government has had to answer to in any way shape of form.  And the government’s dealings with the Committee would be almost comical were they not so concerning coming as they do from people who are running our country.

First, the newspaper had asked both men last summer whether they would deem it fit to appear before the Committee if they were to be asked to do so.  To that question they both gave the very same, carbon copy answer: “If I receive such a request and justification, I will reply accordingly”.

Act 2 followed in February when the Committee came to Malta and unsurprisingly wanted to meet both men.  The minister obliged and gave the Committee his sob story about how he had been the victim of ‘fake news’. He said the country’s independent media, those who had access to the Panama Papers, were in the pockets of the Opposition party and that they had unjustly victimised him for having innocently wanted to set up an innocuous trust for his family.

The chief of staff, however, snubbed the Committee by way of a letter sent by messenger at the 11th hour before the Committee believed he was due to appear, questioning the Committee’s very remit and, amongst other things, saying he did not want to create a precedent of non-elected people being called to testify before European parliamentary committees.

Act 3 came last Saturday when the Committee’s chairman wrote to the Prime Minister himself asking him to exercise his authority and to force Mr Schembri to appear before a hearing next month. 

This was followed by Act 4, which panned out yesterday when this newspaper asked the government whether the Prime Minister would be entertaining the request.  The government, however, replied that, “It would have been more fruitful had Mr Langen [the Committee’s chairman] kept to his institutional role rather than join a Nationalist Party campaign to try to divert attention from the mess they are in”.

Yesterday’s Act 5 saw an obviously irate Mr Langen, who is a member of the EPP – the same political grouping as the PN - release a statement to the effect that it was the Committee as a whole, Socialists included, who sanctioned the request.

All told, the way the government has handled the whole Panamagate affair was a textbook case of burying one’s head in the sand until the storm blows over – to make some cosmetic moves, appear concerned about the situation but, in reality, to ignore it altogether in the hope that public interest will die out and that it will simply go away.

This attitude will clearly not work with the European Parliament.

The chairman noted yesterday how the chief of staff had said in his letter excusing himself from the committee’s scrutiny that he, “feels that his attendance would cause harm and disrepute to his country”.

We concur, for different reasons, but at this point it is a tough call as to whether it is a continued no-show or actually showing up that would cause more harm and disrepute to the country.