On March 14, Konrad Mizzi was celebrating the fourth birthday of his bouncing, bountiful bundle of joy: ‘earnville’.

This self-effacing Labour Party star candidate-turned-star super minister prized the creation he sired to the extent that, for three years, it remained one of the State’s three most closely-guarded secrets.

When news of such a bounty became public, we were told it was nothing less than the fruit of his Labour, eh, labour, as holder of top managerial posts in a number of blue-chip international companies during the time he spent abroad.

Yes, but what keeps irrepressibly springing to mind is that the man had been in Malta for at least a year before the March 2013 election.Why, also, did he have to wait for Labour to be voted into power before Nexia BT was called in to render its midwifery service?

But not only that.

He must have surely had Joseph Muscat’s word that a top ministerial post would be his reward on waltzing up Cash-Till (Castille) steps. But Mizzi waited until he was sworn in as minister before rushing to give the go-ahead to Nexia BT.

He could have given Nexia BT the go-ahead any time before being sworn in and after the result of the general election was known. It seems he regarded Muscat’s promise as akin to two birds in the bush and he would settle for nothing less than a bird in the hand.

Which, of course, raises the question: would the bouncing, bountiful, bundle of joy’s fourth birthday that Mizzi has just celebrated have been of junk value had he not acceded to, and been installed in, as minister?