Auditor General Joseph G. Galea’s tenure was yesterday extended within just an hour of MaltaToday’s enquiries with the Office of the Prime Minister over the finalisation of one of the National Audit Office’s most politically charged of audits.
At 5.42 pm yesterday, the OPM decided Galea would continue reporting for work after MaltaToday confirmed the outgoing Galea would not be presenting Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi with the crucial audit on the procurement of air tickets by government ministries – as yet unfinished on Galea’s last day of work.
The audit was believed to be an “investigation” of John Dalli’s operation at the foreign ministry prior to his resignation in 2004, before MaltaToday confirmed it was actually a comprehensive analysis of all the ministries’ purchasing procedures.
Joseph G. Galea will continue in his role as Auditor General until a successor is found to head the NAO, whose mandate includes the annual financial audit of all government offices and public entities.
Three years since Dalli first suggested the audit in his resignation letter, the report is allegedly in its “final stages”.
Believed to have been the basis upon which Gonzi accepted John Dalli’s resignation, the former minister has recently stated that the purchase of Lm40,000 in air tickets from Tourist Resources Ltd had been “the excuse used by the prime minister to accept my resignation, short of not being accused of any wrongdoing.”
The impression that the former minister was the subject of an investigation was only reinforced by Nationalist Party secretary-general Joe Saliba, on Super One TV last December, when he stated his belief that Dalli “will not be found to have done anything inappropriate” once the NAO finalises the audit.
But two weeks ago on PBS programme Reporter, Saliba seemed to have been caught off-guard when claiming Dalli’s resignation was accepted due to the police investigation of the Joe Zahra report, the private investigator’s fabricated report implicating Dalli’s brother Sebastian in a Mater Dei hospital kickback.
Saliba then corrected himself after being reminded Dalli had been led to believe it was the air tickets saga that prompted his resignation.
Saliba’s Freudian slip provided political fodder for Labour in parliament that week, in its motion of no-confidence it presented against Minister Jesmond Mugliett.