The Minister for Economy and Industry Silvio Schembri has rebutted the report by the National Audit Office on discrepancies and delays found in an audit on the first round of COVID-19 vouchers, saying that the problems were a question of reconciliation, rather than backlog.

The NAO’s report concluded that payments until mid-April amounted to €39,658,543, equivalent to 2,013,124 vouchers. On the contrary, 2,009,743 vouchers were recorded to have been redeemed on the data derived from the software used to generate and record voucher transactions.

This left 3,381 vouchers paid to merchants recorded as not redeemed, amounting to €66,606.

Schembri told the Malta Independent that this figure is equivalent to 0.1% of the amount which the NAO is saying that there hasn’t been reconciliation. He added that the Malta Investment Management Company Limited (MIMCOL) – the entity which the government assigned the voucher scheme to, said that this was not the case.

Schembri said that the timing of when the NAO’s auditing was done was not an ideal one, as it was done whilst the voucher scheme was being implemented. He added that the first round of the voucher scheme was successful enough to introduce a second round.

The audit also found that payments for redeemed vouchers – almost €850,000 - continued to be made for months after the scheme ended. The Malta Independent asked the minister if delays in such payments could negatively affect businesses in the short-term, to which Schembri replied that it was a question of reconciliation, and not of backlog.

There were instances where merchants would have processed the vouchers days after being collected by the public, he said. The technology used to scan vouchers is an immediate one, and so it was not a problem with the system, Schembri said.

The effectiveness and overall sufficiency of the voucher scheme was questioned by the NAO, raising several concerns on any abuses which may have occurred during the implementation of the scheme.

Schembri said that he is assured that there were no abuses, as there were several audits done after the scheme ended. He added that due to these audits, there was improvement for the second round of government vouchers.

The Covid-19 vouchers scheme – ran across two rounds – was one of the government’s key stimulus measures in ensuring an economic recovery from the pandemic.

The first round of vouchers was rolled out throughout 2020 and generated some €11.5 million in spending among consumers.

The second round of vouchers was launched before the start of summer in a bid to help an economy which suffered as a result of shops being closed for several weeks at the height of the virus pandemic.