The irony in Louis Galea finding himself in the European Court of Auditors is that he never had a high opinion of them in the first place
Matthew Vella
Louis Galea’s reported reply to MEPs grilling him on his stewardship of public funds at a hearing on his suitability for the European Court of Auditors was, to say the least, rather disingenuous.
Maybe he was a tad economical about two major investigations into the mismanagement of public monies in the Auxiliary Workers Training Scheme (AWTS) and the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools (FTS) – the bookends of his otherwise illustrious career in the field of Maltese education.
For these two episodes are part of Galea’s political record and of a very Maltese story: the infallibility of the government minister, even when things are clearly wrong inside their political kingdoms.
Galea claimed at his MEP hearing that the conclusions in the investigations by the Permanent Commission Against Corruption and the Auditor-General “do not make one single reference against (him) personally”. Indeed no illegality or corruption was found, but a minority report by Dr Tonio Azzopardi however raised questions about the testimony of the recipients of AWTS contracts.
On the FTS contracts, Galea stated he never involved himself personally in the award of contracts. No minister does.
Although this is not what the AWTS and FTS stories are about.
The AWTS was a €10 million hole in which contracts were awarded to, amongst others, particular constituents of Galea’s. The scheme was established to absorb a number of unemployed workers to work in government services such as refuse disposal. The contracts for the rental of dumpers and cranes eventually fell under the investigation of the anti-corruption commission. Recipients included Kola Mallia, Louis Galea’s chauffeur, who rented out machinery to the AWTS. Others were canvasser Joe Caruana ‘il-Boxa’ from Haz-Zebbug, who raked in Lm70 daily from renting out machinery to the AWTS. Another was Mario Callus, president of the PN’s Siggiewi district branch, and a future board member of the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools. He raked in Lm26 daily from renting out two dumpers to the AWTS. According to the Auditor General’s report in 1990, the expenditure of Lm4 million at the AWTS had been devoid of normal financial controls.
Although the Permanent Commission found no wrongdoing, Dr Tonio Azzopardi, a member of the PCC, presented a minority report in which he expressed doubts of the testimony given by those who rented out machinery to the AWTS.
By comparison, the contracts at the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools were a meagre €1 million of direct orders that seemingly were going to constituents of Galea’s: almost 30% of all contracts in 16 months.
I remember fishing out the parliamentary data on the FTS direct orders. Within a few weeks of the news reports – which would lead to a magisterial inquiry on a report filed by Labour MP Carmelo Abela – the foundation’s CEO Alfred Ferrante would be sacked, and other education division officials disciplined.
When Ferrante was sacked in October 2003 for mismanagement, he claimed he had been a ‘scapegoat’ in the entire FTS saga, and declared in his testimony that George Papagiorcopulo – his predecessor who then was retained as management consultant to the foundation – had advised him on how to issue direct orders, including the way orders could be split up to circumvent some of the strictures of procurement rules.
Ferrante also said that when Galea would go onsite at school construction sites, he sometimes ordered that certain contracts be given to contractors with whom he enjoyed a certain familiarity, directing which work to do on the schools, even bypassing Ferrante. The minister’s spokesperson had reacted to Ferrante’s claims saying Galea was “duty bound to issue instructions and direction wherever this is needed for the better performance of works in schools.”
The inquiry by Magistrate Consuelo Scerri-Herrera had found 511 direct orders that were untraceable from the period in which Papagiorcopulo occupied the post of executive director, and evidence “clear indications that the splitting of orders could have been intentional.”
The foundation’s officials had skirted round the public procurement regulations to see how direct orders or tenders could be issued by “other means… today well-known, to avoid imposed limitations. One of these is the splitting of orders,” a practice which according to Ferrante’s testimony, was suggested to him by Papagiorcopulo himself.
Papagiorcopulo claimed he had never given such advice and that Ferrante tended to take on all headmasters’ demands that “led him to issue certain direct orders.”
The magistrate’s report concluded that there was “no doubt, that despite the warnings by the Ministry of Finance, the Contracts Director and the FTS board itself, FTS officials constantly issued direct orders, breaching the regulations. Permission from the Ministry of Finance was sought posthumously, and not always. At times, the conditions imposed by the Ministry of Finance for validation were not followed.”
Remarkably, no action was then taken by the Attorney General Silvio Camilleri.
Louis Galea is entitled to stand his ground when he claims no personal responsibility in the way the AWTS and FTS issued contracts and direct orders. But as minister, Galea never assumed political responsibility for the mismanagement of these government bodies. If anything, it showed the scant regard government ministers have for investigations into the way their ministries operate: a familiar pattern with the Auditor General and the Ombudsman.
Once Galea joins the illustrious body of members who will be slapping the EU’s wrist on its management of funds, the irony will reveal that golden rule of Maltese politics: never say you’re sorry.
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The need to grill Two recent developments have underscored the gulf of difference that separates Malta from the rest of Europe: the first involved the recent hearings before the European Parliament to approve Barroso’s second Commission; the second was last Monday’s ‘grilling’ of Louis Galea by the European Parliament’s budgetary committee.....>>
