So the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) debate on the power station contract award has been postponed sine die, yet again, with the Acting Speaker Censu Galea saying the ruling would be delivered at a later stage. The problem, as everyone who follows the news knows, is that now the governments’ representatives on the Committee have voted against the calling of witnesses.
First of all, whoever heard of an investigative committee not calling crucial witnesses?
One might as well dissolve the PAC the way things are going. Do we need another useless ‘watchdog’? Why do I get the feeling we are being taken for a ride? Our watchdogs, not just the PAC, are either being kept on a leash too tight to function, or are slumbering in complacency.
Secondly, Minister Austin Gatt, who was the one to object to the calling of witnesses, should not even have been sitting in on this debate, since the power station came under his portfolio at the time the contract was being worked on and finalised. If anything, he should be summoned to give evidence.
He was reported as saying he “would have no difficulty answering any questions. But the PAC had no function to force reticent witnesses to speak up.” Have the PAC resorted to waterboarding? Not likely. What Dr Gatt means is that he knows how to field awkward questions but is anxious that not all the witnesses would.
In my article “It will not go away” of 2 May, I guessed that this debacle was bound to happen. I had mentioned that although our PAC structure is based on the UK’s Public Accounts Committee, Cabinet ministers in the UK are expressly excluded from sitting on the PAC.
Whereas here, Ministers Tonio Fenech and Austin Gatt, the former now Energy Minister, are on the PAC and will be voting on the outcome. So it looks like a fait accompli, I opined. The PAC is composed of four members from government and three members from the Opposition including the chairman who does not have a casting vote.
Dr Gatt requested a vote on every single person who the chairman was proposing to summon. A vote was then put for each witness and all were denied with the government MPs voting against.
The people who the chairman wished to summon were Frans Attard, Director of the Contacts Committee, Alfred Camilleri, Ing. Karl Camilleri, Ing. Albert Farrugia, Edmond Gatt Baldcacchino who is the current Enemalta chairman, John Gatt, permanent secretary at the Infrastructure Ministry, Ing. Peter Grima, Ing. Joseph Mifsud, Joseph Mizzi, BWSC local representative, David Spiteri Gingell, and former Enemalta chairman Ing. Alex Tranter.
Joseph Mizzi was the person with a bad case of amnesia when questioned by the Auditor and David Spiteri Gingell, former Enemalta chief executive officer and adjudicating committee chairman of the project in question, admitted mistakes had been made and took full responsibility.
The way accountability works in Mr Spiteri Gingell’s mind is saying “Oops, sorry, my mistake. I assumed someone else had done the job I was supposed to do, but I cannot resign because my term as adjudicating chair for the project had expired and I can save the government taking any responsibility” (my quote, 23 May).
Nice try by Mr Spiteri Gingell, but supervisory bodies, like the PAC, are there to ensure that government shoulders its responsibilities. Minister Gatt is doing all he can to derail this PAC investigation by objecting to it calling vital witnesses and saying that the debate is undermining the auditor’s report on the issue and showed the auditor disrespect. That of course is humbug.
According to reports, Dr Gatt said that while he had no objection to a debate by the committee on the Auditor General’s report on the power station contract, he felt that the summoning of witnesses by the Committee undermined the Auditor-General who had himself interviewed the same people as part of an 11-month investigation. “The committee was acting as if the Auditor-General’s work was a waste of time,” he was quoted as saying in The Times.
Of course he has to agree that the PAC debate the Auditor General’s report on the power station contract since according to the PAC’s Standing Orders, “The Standing Committee on Public Accounts shall have the power to: (f) examine reports, and related documents, made by the Director of Audit.”
But what is the point of examining the auditor’s report without following up vital points brought up in that report like “a lack of co-operation from certain stakeholders who contended that they could not recall certain events or information” and interviewing those stakeholders?”
The inquiry was initially called by the PAC to investigate whether tender procurement procedures had been regular and relative regulations adhered to. It was clear from the auditor’s report that serious failings had occurred, so how can the PAC follow up that report without calling crucial witnesses?
The undermining of the auditor’s report was done by senior government members, including Austin Gatt, and the Prime minister when they played down the significance of the lack of hard evidence because of the non- cooperation of central witnesses, ignored the auditor’s questioning “the undue haste with which the agreement was signed” and that he found “serious shortcomings in the tender process, especially on the part of Enemalta Corporation and the Department of Contracts”.
The auditor also identified various cases of administrative shortcomings. “Rules and regulations must be rigorously applied and followed without exception or fail. Quoting reasons of urgency does not per se provide the necessary authorisation for not following such rules and regulations,” said the report. This indicated that the regulations were not rigorously applied.
That is precisely what should come under the PAC’s scrutiny and how can it do that without hearing evidence from key people? Besides, did Minister Gatt not show disrespect when he accused the Attorney General of “not having read the law”, when referring to Enemalta’s chairman Alex Tranter, who the Auditor General said should have resigned after declaring a conflict of interest during the procurement process.
And what about the Finance Minister’s dismissive attitude of the irregularities because he claimed the PL criticism would result in “the country not having the power supply it needs for Maltese families and industry”.
It must be particularly frustrating for PAC chairman Charles Mangion to have to keep going back to the Speaker for a ruling. The last was when he addressed the House on the issue and requested a ruling by the Speaker on whether the committee was empowered to call witnesses in such circumstances.
Dr Mangion disagreed with Dr Gatt arguments and said there were several instances in the past when House committees questioned individuals in public as part of their scrutiny role. This, he said, did not undermine the Audit Office report.
“The main purpose of the PAC was to scrutinise the workings of the government, a fact reinforced by the fact that the committee was chaired by an Opposition MP. Standing Orders gave the committee the authority to summon witnesses. That the committee was unable to summon witnesses went against all practice. If the committee had to agree on who should be summoned, the decision would ultimately be in the hands of the government, which had a majority,” he told the House.
That is exactly what is happening. How can the PAC effectively scrutinise the workings of government with two Cabinet ministers and two other government MPs on the committee and only three Opposition members, including the chairman who does not have a casting vote?
This was the second time that the PAC chairman had to ask for the Speaker’s ruling on this debate. The first ruling by Michael Frendo’s stated, “although the committee chairman set the agenda, the members could demand a vote on it.”
Lino Spiteri writing in The Times last Sunday criticised that ruling saying, “That directly undermined a major plank of the PAC, because the four government members could make the committee discard the agenda set by the chairman. Frendo has created a very dangerous precedent which, I feel, should be reviewed with urgency.”
Reading the comments online following the latest episode in the saga, I realised that many people have no idea what the Public Accounts Committee is there for. It is there to monitor that government is spending our money wisely and diligently. It is meant to be a parliamentary watchdog.
The people who look at the issue as yet another partisan topic to bandy about are wrong. Whichever party is in government needs to be scrutinised. What this government is doing is setting the wrong precedent that should be worrying everyone regardless of his or her politics.
[email protected]