Finance Minister cancelled yesterday’s press conference

The Finance Minister, Edward Scicluna, was scheduled to speak to the press yesterday afternoon on routine matters. The press conference, which had been set up before the latest news on the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri, was called off shortly before it was due to start.

I do not for one moment believe that Scicluna knew about any of this, and from what I know of him – which admittedly does not go beyond a few conversations during work meetings in what now seems to be another lifetime – I would say that he is as shocked as the rest of us and contemplating his next step.

Cabinet ministers with a personal and professional reputation to protect cannot afford to be caught up and tainted by association with this corruption. Scicluna will not be the only one.

I don’t think there is a journalist right now who wouldn’t give his or her right arm to be an invisible presence at their cabinet meeting in the midst of this crisis. How can the Prime Minister face his ministers? He has lost their respect and his authority.

Edward Scicluna, the Finance Minister, really doesn’t need this