Prime Minister Joseph Muscat lied last October when he said that an audit of his minister Konrad Mizzi's offshore company and trust was a "work in progress", the Nationalist Party said this afternoon. 

The audit opinion released by Dr Mizzi on Monday was dated September 21, 2016 - more than two weeks before Dr Muscat's statement. 

In a statement, the PN said that the Prime Minister had "lied to the Maltese people" because he already had the audit "in his hands" when he had claimed that it was still underway. 

READ: 'I was a victim of fake news', says Konrad Mizzi

The PN made reference to a report in The Malta Independent, which first pointed out the timeline discrepancy. 

It reiterated its stance that no audit could take the place of a proper investigation into Dr Mizzi's financial affairs by police and financial crime investigators at the FIAU. Money laundering, it added, was punishable by up to 18 years in prison by law. 

Dr Mizzi, who serves as a Minister within the Office of the Prime Minister, is the only sitting minister within the EU to have been named in the Panama Papers data leak. 

MEPs investigating the data leak interviewed Dr Mizzi last Monday, with committee chairman and EPP MEP Werner Langen telling the press that although events "would seem to point to potential money laundering," the committee he chaired had no documentary evidence of this. 

Today the Times of Malta revealed that in his meeting with Pana Committee members, Dr Mizzi explained away emails by saying accountancy firm Nexia BT must have confused him with Keith Schembri, who serves as the Prime Minister's chief of staff and had established an offshore structure similar to his.