Curbing financial unaccountability

Every now and then we read about alleged abuses in which direct orders are used by governments in order to evade financial accountability. The government of the day takes pleasure in disclosing the various abuses in the issuing of direct orders which Opposition sympathisers benefitted from when their political party was in government.
As time passes and the Opposition is entrusted with the governance of the country, lo and behold, the new government continues with the same malpractice it was so vociferously against when in the Opposition benches. All of a sudden, what was an immoral practice has now been blessed by the newly-anointed government!
To the people’s dismay, that abominable procedure of government issuing direct orders – when abusive, imprudent, unjustified, unreasonable and unnecessary – tends to be favoured by our political class when in government as it is nothing but a method of paying back the blue-eyed and red-eyed boys and girls who have been of service, not necessarily to their country but to their political party. The direct order procedure has been abused over time.
Politicians all know this though they do not seem to have the courage to admit it and, more importantly, redress it. Will this abusive practice come to a halt? Will the main political parties represented in Parliament ever pledge to curb the squandering or misuse of people’s money without even making direct order service providers go through a competitive process, which is both healthy for financial democracy, the country and the bidders themselves? Both political parties represented in Parliament praise the advantages of a competitive economy but when push comes to shove, the benefits of a competitive economy appear to be set aside.
One then understands, begrudgingly, that politicians’ utterances in favour of financial propriety end up to be nothing more than lip service. Through the abuse of direct orders, the red-eyed boys and girls will benefit under a Labour administration in the same way that blue eyed boys and girls have already benefitted under a Nationalist administration.
The abuse of awarding direct orders without going through an open, transparent and accountable competitive process is not only a matter of financial accountability to ensure that abuse is repressed. It is also a matter of good governance, which dictates that the public administration – as a trustee not a squanderer of taxpayers’ monies – should administer such money as a reasonable ordinary intelligent person administers his or her finances.
Squandering or misusing such money where no competitive bids take place, or where pay backs for services rendered during an electoral campaign or to the political party elected to govern are the order of the day, does not fall under the criterion of good governance, at least to my dictionary’s definition of the term. On the contrary, recourse to direct orders and, worse still, abusing of the procedure, is nothing but an abuse of power.
Such abuse should be curtailed in the interest of financial propriety. It can be easily done through appropriate legal or administrative measures. But this is not really the issue. The question is not how to address the abuse made of direct orders but whether there is the political will and moral fibre to do so. The ‘scratch my back and I will scratch yours when in government’ philosophy seems to be the guiding principle followed by past and present administrations since independence. Nor does it appear that European Union membership, notwithstanding its advantages for Malta, has managed to dent this financial unaccountable mentality once our administrators have decided to uphold this principle of clientelism tooth and nail.
There are various ways in which abuse of direct orders can be curtailed. The first option is to do away with direct orders entirely. The second is to cap recourse to direct orders to a small amount, say, not exceeding €5,000.
Third, the public administration should be in a position to seek the authorisation of the Public Accounts Committee before approving a direct order. The public administration will have to make its case before the Public Accounts Committee before proceeding with the order, and said Committee should always obtain written advice from the Auditor General before authorising the direct order.
Fourth, although there may be cases where the Public Accounts Committee may opt to delegate its powers to the public administration when approving direct orders of a small amount – say, again, not more than €5,000 – the public administration would have to abide by the criteria for awarding direct orders which the Public Accounts Committee should adopt and coherently apply. In this way, there is put in place a transparent, open and accountable way of awarding direct orders. The public administration should always report back to the Public Accounts Committee when it awards a direct order in terms of such a delegated power.
Fifth, when the public administration awards a direct order, there should be the possibility for an aggrieved party to make representations before the Public Accounts Committee within 10 days from when the public administration publishes a notice of the award of a direct order in the Department of Contracts website. The Public Accounts Committee should be empowered to review such award and, if need be, cancel it and request the public administration to issue a tender instead.
Sixth, the public administration should seek the approval of the Auditor General to award a direct order and, should the public administration disagree with the Auditor General it should have the right to challenge him before the Civil Court, First Hall.
These are only a few suggestions of how to address abuse of direct orders. Other proposals can surely be conceived. What remains of the essence is that the power of granting direct orders with few checks in place is seen to and effective ways devised to make such awards open, transparent and accountable bearing in mind that the public administration should administer such funds wisely, properly, objectively and in the best interests of the state.