2006 audit finds 'inadequate' control on travel spending at Foreign Ministry

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2006 lacked adequate control on travel expenditure, potentially contributing to an increase of 25 percent in spending over its original budget, according to the National Audit Office (NAO) Audit Report for 2006.

The report, which was tabled in Parliament this evening, says that agendas or programmes relating to visits abroad were not found in any of the advances files. Certain expenses paid through the ministry’s credit card were not deducted from the subsistence allowance. Documentation supporting travel abroad was at times incomplete and unclear.

Approvals for hospitality expenditure as well as that for the purchase of a number of assets were only obtained after the expenditure was incurred. And payments were not always supported by a fiscal document.

The NAO noted that a number of ministries, departments and entities failed to send their annual 2006 return of arrears to the Treasury Department for onward transmission to the NAO.

Some departments also lacked submission of detailed breakdown of figures, hindering audit testing.

The report notes that payments due in respect of medicines and surgical materials at the Government Pharmaceutical Services increased throughout the year by €6.52 million and totalled €28.42 million as at the end of 2006.

31 percent of the total were outstanding for over 150 days. Moreover, by the end of July 2007 about €39.37 million were already paid in respect of Medicines and Surgical Materials.

The report said that at the Electoral Office employees and other third parties were being additionally compensated for work performed during office hours in connection with elections with certain remuneration bypassing the Final Settlement System for tax purposes.

The report also found that a number of social assistance beneficiaries in a selected sample were receiving an incorrect rate of benefit. An automatic assessment for social assistance introduced in March 2005 was barely being used as a result of the very complex process of inputting data. Various weaknesses were noted with respect to medical panel reviews.

The full report can be viewed at NAO’s website nao.gov.mt as from Tuesday.