A series of Parliamentary Questions over the past few weeks have revealed how most government ministries have dished out contracts worth tens and hundreds of thousands of euro – in some cases even millions - by direct order.

Contracts worth over a certain amount are supposed to be awarded by a transparent tendering process but the much maligned Direct Order, it seems, has become the order of the day.

While the tendering process is public and transparent from start to finish, direct orders are anything but.

Consecutive administrations (PN and PL) have been criticized for opting for opaque method of spending public funds, but the sheer volume and value of direct orders awarded as of late has reached alarming levels.

Perhaps the worst example are the two direct orders, worth more than €5 million in total, that have been awarded for a construction of a new shooting range at Ta’ Kandja. The excuse there was that this was a very urgent project and that there was only one company that could have bid for the specialized project.

From the information tabled in Parliament it also emerged that the Health Ministry spent close to €7 million over five direct orders; that the Environment Ministry awarded over €11 million for three direct orders related to waste management; and that six entities that fall under the responsibility of the Office of the Prime Minister issued direct orders worth over €5 million in the space of just over a year.

The Ministry for Gozo, the Ministry for Transport, and the Ministry for Family, Children’s Rights and Social Solidarity issued direct orders of €4.3 million, €2.8 million, and €1.4 million respectively.

Pressure has been piled on the government to explain why contracts with such high values were awarded by direct order, circumventing the normal transparent methods.

When quizzed by The Malta Independent last week, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said he would not investigate high value direct orders, passing the buck instead on the National Audit Office.

Muscat also assured the members of the press that “everything would be made public.”

That last statement is not very reassuring coming from the same government that kept important contracts under wraps and only published others after heavily redacting them.

The NAO argument is also flawed. For a start, defending direct orders by saying that any wrongdoing would be flagged by the NAO is a bit like defending crime because the police will later catch the perpetrators and prosecute them.

Besides, the  National Audit Office has over the years repeatedly flagged the use of direct orders and the lack of accountability that is synonymous with the system, yet the less than accountable system is still in place today and is seemingly becoming more commonly used than ever before.

The NAO is an important tool for government accountability but it will only be truly effective if its recommendations are taken on board by the executive.

It is useless for the office to say that direct orders should not exceed certain values when the powers that be will do as they please anyway.