NEWS | Wednesday, 17 December 2008

PRINT THIS ARTICLE

Mayhem in appointment and payment of ministry consultants

Matthew Vella
The annual report by the National Audit Office has found an increase in ad hoc consultants and advisors appointed with various ministers, without being backed up by proper contracts.
The report was presented to parliament on Monday evening, and is a yearly rundown of accounting procedures and auditory checks on the government’s set-up.
According to the report, in 2007 there were 43 consultants employed on a part-time basis with 11 ministries.
The report found five out of 11 ministries had failed to forward replies to the Auditor-General’s questionnaire and contracts in respect of five consultants were never forwarded. Three consultants rendering services to the government were employed without a formal written contract.
Work and hours worked by the consultants was also not being documented. Only one ministry said that attendance records were maintained to verify the number of hours performed by three consultants. Another ministry stated that its consultant signed attendance sheets on his own initiative.
“Top management may not be in a position to effectively control the number of hours worked by each of its consultants. The ministry may not be adequately covered in its future request to OPM to extend the particular contracts of service,” the report said.
From the 24 out of 38 contracts surveyed (63%), it was noted that duties were not specified in detail in the contracts, which the NAO said would not render the ministry able to hold the consultant directly accountable.
On controls over work performed, the NAO said the ministries lacked adequate monitoring of performance.
One adviser entered into two separate contracts in 2004 with two ministries, for the provision of 10 hours and 30 hours advisory services per week. The individual was found to be a pensioner. Although rendering a total of 40 hours were week to government, he was only being deducted a 15% part-time tax on income earned for advisory services.
Payments to six consultants included amounts in excess of those specified in their contracts. Extra payments were made related to bonuses and weekly allowances, cost of living allowance and other allowances.
The NAO added that the tax guide for fringe benefits had not been complied with in calculating the taxable fringe benefit arising from the use of fully expensed cars by three consultants.
The NAO also said that consultants were appointed personally by the ministry. Only seven of the 43 part-time consultants were ex-government employees held in employment over the retirement age.
“This may be interpreted that present government employees expect to enter into a contract of service following their retirement because of the past experience/expertise in the field,” the report said.
The NAO noted that several contracts and performance agreements lacked the consultants ID number, or the witness ID number and the date the contract was signed. Two contracts quoted an incorrect consultant.

Other findings
In one case, a policy coordinator at the former Ministry of Investment, Industry, and IT was found to have exceeded his mobile phone entitlement of Lm350 (€815) in December, spending Lm1,316 (€3,065) in calls.
A number of concerns arose when an audit of the social security contributions was carried out at the Inland Revenue Department. In particular it was noted that enforcement measures need to be urgently introduced to ensure collection of the amounts of Social Security outstanding; there is lack of proper monitoring ensuring compliance with settlement agreements; and the Department is not in a position to quantify the amounts due by employers.
The NAO found sickness benefits being claimed irregularly on a sample of 50 beneficiaries. One claimant of sickness assistance had a €465,000 loan, which the NAO said should make the department examine banking information on loans taken out by claimants.
Shortcomings were identified over the checking conducted by the salaries section within the Ministry for Gozo prior to issuing of Salaries service-wide.
From a review of the audit reports and the relative management letters submitted by Local Government auditors for all Local Councils, a number of concerns were raised relating to lack of accountability especially as regards the management of public funds by a number of Councils.

PRINT THIS ARTICLE

Any comments?
If you wish your comments to be published in our Letters pages please click button below.
Please write a contact number and a postal address where you may be contacted.