The Malta Council for Science and Technology (MCST) is still without a board, almost 18 months or so after the previous board resigned en-masse.
Prior to the last general election in June 2017, the members of the board offered their resignation to the government – an act which is customary prior to such an election. Indeed all but one member of the whole board resigned during the period. The only board member not to resign was its chairman, former MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando.
The last time that the board was constituted, according to the Government Gazette, was in 2016 by Education Minister Evarist Bartolo; but following the general election, the responsibility of the MCST was moved from the Education ministry to the Office of the Prime Minister.
Since then, the Prime Minister has not reconstituted the board. The page on the MCST’s website dedicated to saying who makes up the board simply carries the message that “the new board will be nominated by the Office of the Prime Minister imminently”.
When The Malta Independent asked the MCST why the board had not been re-constituted and when it would be, a spokesperson for the MCST simply told this newsroom that the reconstitution of the board is “entirely at the discretion of the Prime Minister”.
The financial report for the year 2017 found that the MCST had registered a €2.2 million operating deficit – although when factoring in a government subvention to the council, which totals €1.4 million, and other minor sources of income, the total deficit for year is lowered to €467,117.
The deficit is not reflected in the council’s cash flow statement, wherein €1.3 million are removed from the equation as an adjustment for depreciation and amortisation, whilst a further €1.1 million is gained through a “change in trade and other payables”. Factoring in the government subvention and minor income once again, the cash flow statement finds that the net cash generated from operating activities is €1.9 million.
The MCST’s revenue is registered as coming from two sources; the various projects it organises, and the Esplora Interactive Science Centre, which was opened in October 2016. In the case of the former €4.92 million was the reported revenue, whilst €438,000 was the reported revenue for the latter.
The project income is split between FP (Framework Programmes), RTDI (Research, Technology Development and Innovation) programmes, ENIAC (European Nanoelectronics Initiative Advisory Council) programmes and Esplora programmes. The Esplora programmes were the ones which registered the highest income, with €2.39 million, followed by the RTDI programmes, with €1.4 million, and then the ENIAC programmes, with €913,366. The FP programmes registered €220,209 in income.
However, the expenses of the RTDI and ENIAC programmes match exactly with their income; meaning that the income is essentially cancelled out. Furthermore, the expenses for the FP programmes are calculated at having been €293,215; hence equating to a loss of €73,006 on these programmes.
Curiously, the expenses related to the Esplora programmes are not listed amongst the expenses for all the other such programmes.
It is noted in the financial statement that the project income “is recognised in income and expenditure so as to match it with the cost towards which it is intended to contribute”.
Expenses related to the running of Esplora are not specifically noted down anywhere in the financial statement either. Asked about this, the MCST spokesperson told this newsroom that all Esplora related expenses were factored into a list of “Administrative Expenses”.
In its first full year of operations Esplora hosted a grand total of 105,748 people, 53,848 of which were adults, 24,541 children and 25,577 students. In 2017, Esplora offered over 200 interactive exhibits, 23 hands-on workshops, 6 live science shows, 6 artistic performances and workshops, and 7 planetarium films.
These expenses take into account various expenses ranging from salaries, to depreciation, to advertising and promotions, cleaning, staff training, water and electricity, bank charges, and a whole host of other expenses. Nowhere in the list is there stated when an expense specifically pertains to Esplora.
These “administrative expenses” were marked as the main source of expenses, totalling up to €4.96 million. This is a marked rise from the amount of such expenses in 2016, which totalled up to €2.07 million. Administrative expenses for 2015 were calculated to be €1.63 million, which was also a slight increase on the administrative expenses for 2014, which stood at €1.56 million.
The most significant rise in administrative expenses in 2017 when compared to 2016 was in wages and salaries, where the figure spent had risen from €1.24 million in 2016 to €2.55 million in 2017. Related to this statistic is the fact that the average number of persons employed by the MCST during the year had only risen by 20 people, from 94 in 2016 to 114 in 2017.
Asked to explain such a significant increase in money spent on wages and salaries especially given the fact that the number of average person employed had only risen by 20, the MCST spokesperson said that since Esplora only started operating at the end of October 2016, “a large portion of wages and salaries for the 10-month period between January to October, relating to research and development costs in connection with the setting up of Esplora, were not expensed during 2016 but capitalised as an internally generated intangible asset”.
The spokesperson added that “on the other hand, all wages and salaries for 2017 were expensed thereby giving rise to the apparent ‘increase’ year on year.”
Both the MCST and Esplora are primarily government funded, the spokesperson said. The entire Esplora project cost €26 million, with the Planetarium alone costing some €3.5 million. The European Union funded 85% of the project.