Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi recently paid a visit to Renzo Piano in Paris and came home with the news that the plans for the entrance to the capital city will be enhanced by additional measures to rehabilitate the “grubby” bus terminus – which will obviously make the City Gate project larger and more expensive. This means that the price tag for the project, originally set at between e60 and e80 million, will be inflated by an undisclosed margin.

Dr Gonzi was quite loquacious on generalities but very economical on the wherewithal. He declared breezily that the proposed theatre would remain roofless and that major alterations are envisaged to make the façade of the flats in Freedom Square conform to the Renzo Piano design, but he volunteered no information on the cost of this increased commitment. Still less did he take the trouble to consider whether a substantial part of this proposed expenditure goes against the grain of public opinion.

It is a fact that the cost of government is escalating and, in some areas, running out of control. Notwithstand-ing successive years of deficit spending, the government has, only recently, launched plans to reform the public transport system. The problem of recouping outstanding tax arrears has reached mind-boggling proportions, with a staggering el,189 million of revenue due to the state in 2008 reported by the Auditor General in his last annual report.

The root of all evil goes back to the early money-no-problem formula, institutionalised in the Fenech Adami years, when public spending was sustained by borrowing and by the sale of the family jewels, and when a major Public Service Reform, involving an outlay of millions of Maltese liri, was unmatched by anything like a relative increase in productivity. The Dockyard bled under poor management and the welfare gap snowballed merrily – and, while all of this was going on, there was no organised attempt to institutionalise parliamentary control over public expenditure. The Office of the Auditor General was never beefed up to permit it to give a meaningful account of its stewardship. By this I mean that, once the Office of the Auditor General discovers blatant irregularities, it ought to be in a position to sanitise matters and to initiate disciplinary proceedings through the proper channels forthwith.

Rather than bringing all public expenditure under the umbrella of effective parliamentary control, there has been a tendency to set up more and more quangos, with their own independent auditors, operating outside the direct scrutiny of Parliament.

It is known that the parties represented in Parliament toyed with the idea of negotiation in search of mutually agreeable formulas that would permit the setting up of various parliamentary committees. The spirit may have been willing, but the flesh was weak. The result is that a cancerous situation has been developing and the economy is under strain.

As a matter of urgency, Malta needs to address the need to face the underlying problems resulting from the waste of scarce resources by underwriting ingrained inefficiency. I have no idea whether or not the breaking point is on the horizon. It is clear that we are getting nearer, whether by inching towards disaster or by speeding in the same direction.

This is not the first time that voices have been raised to counsel restraint in public spending. Although these voices address themselves to bureaucrats and irrepressible administrators who ought to be accountable for their decisions, or to politicians in ministerial office, the ultimate onus for sorting out this malaise rests squarely on the shoulders of all Members of Parliament.

They have a collective responsibility for authorising public expenditure and for the proper scrutiny of the administration of public funds.