Arrears of revenue reported by ministries and departments to the National Audit Office amounted to Lm412.4 million, of which Lm80.6 million was reported as collectable as at 31 December 2005, according to the annual audit report.

The report, which was submitted to the Speaker of the House of Representatives last month, covers audits carried out during the second part of 2006, in respect of the financial year ended 31 December 2005. It also makes reference to other audits published in the mid-year audit report that was laid on the Table of the House on 27 July 2006.

The main areas of concern identified in the Annual Audit Report were as follows:

An audit at the Public Registry in respect of searches revealed that no regular back-ups of the database for searches were submitted to the Public Registry by the responsible company. No arrears of revenue were being reported by the Department, even though a considerable amount of charges/fees was still uncollected in respect of searches.

From a review of the audit reports and the relative management letters submitted by local government auditors for all local councils, a number of concerns were reported. Furthermore a considerable number of local councils have also registered various weaknesses with respect to the accounting of the Local Enforcement System (LES). It was also observed that Joint Committees’ financial statements were not submitted in time to coincide with the audit of the local councils.

At a selected Joint Committee for the year ended 31 March 2005, tribunal pending payments in respect of the pooling period stood at Lm504,335, reflecting an increase of 40 per cent over last year. Bad debts provision was estimated at Lm136,515, reflecting an increase of 60 per cent over the previous year.

The tribunal outstanding payments totalled Lm596,032 as at February 2006, of which:

Lm111,315 related to 65 motor vehicles. Nineteen of these vehicles had each accumulated pending payments over Lm2,000 and;

Lm155,880 related to 69 owners. Twenty-two of these had accumulated pending payments over Lm2,000 each with the top offender exceeding Lm26,000.

Although the Traffic Regulation Ordinance requires the non-renewal of motor vehicle road licences with unpaid fines or penalties, 1,736 motor vehicles with pending payments as at March 2006 had their licence renewed.

Heads of certain educational establishments in Gozo are not keeping inventories in conformity with regulations.

The Gozo Education Office (GEO) Salaries Section processes the payroll of the teaching and non-teaching staff in Gozo Schools as well as of its employees. However, control is weakened because most payments cannot be verified by the Section, once source documents are located at the Registry of the Malta Education Division or at the Treasury. Moreover, instructions for salary deductions not timely received are resulting in overpayments which the GEO is at times having difficulty in recovering. The Social Security Department’s SABS computerised system does not incorporate a nominal bank account that can be reconciled to the bank statement. Furthermore, the Department does not keep a list of unpresented cheques for each reconciliation period. From a reasonableness test carried out to verify the correctness of unpresented cheques as at end 2005, which amounted to Lm1.34 million, it resulted that over 20 per cent of the list consisted of payments issued prior to the year 2004.

An age analysis of the total population benefiting from Invalidity Pensions for the year under review shows that three per cent of recipients are under 40 years of age and 16 per cent are under 50 years of age, representing 322 and 1,526 beneficiaries respectively. Medical reassessments are not made in instances where a beneficiary is granted invalidity pension indefinitely. An updated procedures manual was not available, and several informal policies were being used by the Department in the calculation of invalidity pensions.

In a special report on the main themes and key issues emerging from the implementation of electronic (e-) government, the NAO discusses the need for more attention to be given by senior management in ministries and public entities to the:

• leadership and ownership of e-government initiatives and projects;

• development of strategies that encourage the public to interact electronically;

use of technology-enabled change to transform back-office processes and structures; and

• establishment of management information systems and monitoring processes to periodically review and improve the type and level of services offered online.

The Office carried out a preliminary survey at the Occupational Health and Safety Authority, focusing on the authority’s work relating to the construction industry. Although the authority has endeavoured to raise occupational health and safety awareness and the enforcement of relevant regulations in all economic sectors, including the construction industry, the lack of human resources available renders the authority a reactive rather than a pro-active institution in all aspects of its activities.