One of these days a letter from the European Commission will be sent to the EUPA – the national agency set up to coordinate the European Unions’s programme in education in Malta. EUPA’s mismanagement has driven the Commission to suspend all these programmes for Malta. The Commission’s letter will be “detailing all requirements to be addressed by the National Authority and the National Agency before the programmes can be resumed...”
Last Tuesday I asked the Commission to tell me what is to be done to address the problems at EUPA so that our children and young people can enjoy the opportunities offered by the EU programmes. The Commission told me that the programnmes were suspended “due to a persisting lack of assurance that the EU funds are managed according to the required standards. There is no evidence of fraud. Rather, persisting management weaknesses have been noted. These are related to the accounting system used, the controls by the Maltese National Authority on the systems and financial operations of the National Agency, the controls on grant beneficiaries by the National Agency and the procedures for the management and the implementation of the programmes which are not entirely adequate.”
The incompetence that has led to this mess did not fall from heaven. It has been created on this earth by the PN way of doing politics. People have not been recruited at EUPA on meritocratic criteria. Only PN supporters are allowed in, even if they are less qualified than others. Since Dolores Cristina was appointed Minister for Education, things have got worse as people coming from her two constituencies are preferred to persons coming from other parts of Malta.
The person running these programmes is actually qualified in archaeology and one can imagine how his university course has prepared him for the managerial post he now occupies! Apart from one or two people, there is not a single person at EUPA who really knows what they should be doing and how to do it. Persons have not been recruited on the basis of their experience or competence. Those who are employed at EUPA or have the responsibility to oversee EUPA as one of the directors in the Ministry of Education have been chosen mostly because they are PN supporters; and it helps a lot if you are a PN councillor or a mayor and if your father or mother happen to be a former or present PN minister.
The PN says it wants to make Malta a centre of excellence by 2015. This is a big joke. How can you have excellence and reward mediocrity and just take care of your own, however incompetent they are?
The Commission has justified its decision to suspend the EU programmes Comenius, Erasmus, Leonardo da Vinci and Grundtvig because of the incompetent way EUPA is run. Minister Cristina has created this problem, can she solve it now? To do so she must get down to addressing the shortcomings in EUPA that led to the suspension of these programmes. This suspension is hurting many families, children and young people who were looking forward to participate in these programmes some of them have already spent money on the trip they were planning to one of the EU countries. How will these people who lost money and educational opportunities be compensated?
Before the Commission drew attention to serious shortcomings at EUPA, internal audit reports in Malta had drawn attention to this mismanagement several times during these last two years. Instead of heeding the message and addressing these problems, the Minister decided to shoot the messengers. This is totally unacceptable.
The Commission has told me that “normal operations of the Programmes will be resumed subject to Commission’s appreciation of progress realised in terms of providing reasonable assurance on the management of decentralised actions of the Lifelong Learning and Youth in Action Programmes.”
An action plan needs to be drawn up to ensure that all the necessary steps are taken to manage EUPA much better than at present. The Commission is going to explain what is to be done. How can the incompetent people running EUPA all of a sudden acquire the necessary skills to do a decent job?
Last Monday the Director General – Helene Clark – informed Malta and the other 26 EU member states that the EU Commission to protect the financial interests of the EU “has decided to suspend the implementation of the Lifelong Learning and Youth in Action Programmes in Malta given the lack of assurance on the management of EU decentralised action funds in the country.”
This decision has had a negative effect on many children and young people who were looking forward to their participation in the educational programmes of Comenius, Erasmus, Grundtvig and Leonardo da Vinci.
Will the decision by the EU Commission serve to push Minister Dolores Cristina to take the necessary steps to address the serious shortcomings and mismanagement in the local EUPA? Minister Cristina herself is to blame for allowing the situation at EUPA to deteriorate to the point of having its programmes for 2010 suspended by the EU Commission.
It did not have to come to this. Top officials of the Education Ministry had informed Minister Cristina of what was going on within EUPA. Instead of addressing the problems, Minister Cristina got rid of the officials who drew her attention to irregularities and poor management.
Labour MPs also raised these issues in parliamentary questions but Minister Cristina preferred to look the other way and gave the impression that there is nothing wrong at EUPA. Several persons and organizations have contacted the Commission, the European Parliament and the European Anti-Fraud Office to complain about the shabby and unprofessional treatment they were subjected to by EUPA.
People working in the Education Ministry who know first hand how Minister Cristina operates believe that she cannot address the problems at EUPA, simply because she is creating them herself by running all the structures that fall under her responsibility like a personal fiefdom. She is the problem and she has to change if she is to become part of the solution. She has created a cabal of individuals that are chosen primarily for their loyalty to her. To form part of these tight powerful networks, it is not enough to be a Nationalist, as persons close to former ministers Louis Galea and John Dalli have found out; you have to be a crony of Minister Cristina’s. While some of these have been told to look for another job they were told that Minister Cristina prefers working only with her “own chosen people”.
This cronyism and nepotism create the right conditions for irregularities and bad management where the chosen few are rewarded even if they are incompetent while the many suffer.
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.
Search:
MALTATODAY
BUSINESSTODAY
Download MaltaToday Sunday issue front page in pdf file format
