A fell swoop by the Speaker

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is arguably the most important standing committee appointed by the House of Representatives.

The committee, like other similar entities, is appointed with members from both sides of the House on it.

But it is fundamentally different in that the opposition of the day has powers which are stronger than usual that enable it to play an important role innormal circumstances.

Circumstances are normal when the members of the PAC understand and appreciate that their role on the committee is not a partisan one.

It is intended to fulfil the bullet objective of the committee, which is to safeguard the people’s interest by overseeing public expenditure and ensuring as far as can be that it is carried out efficiently and effectively, giving value for money.

The model for our PAC, like that in most countries of the Commonwealth where it exists, is that of the House of Commons. There, PAC members are fiercely jealous of their non-partisan role to safeguard the indivisible interests of the people. The committee is made up of backbenchers, who do their utmost to operate at arm’s length from their respective party and to do so at nobody’s behest.

Even government members of the British PAC can be fearsome critics of their side. In Malta we started off very much on the right foot when our PAC was set up. I was opposition spokesman on finance at the time and played some role in the process, later being appointed the first chairman of the new committee.

In the discussions that led up to unanimous agreement of the terms of reference which would be converted into Standing Orders, we embedded three conditions which could ensure that the PAC would not succumbto any majority temptation to turn into a mere puppy of the government of the day.

The chairman, as is usual in the Westminster lobby, would be nominated by the opposition of the day, in consultation with the Leader of the House. The chairman, who would not have a casting vote, would have the right given to other committee chairmen to set the agenda.

But, and this was a key third condition I had insisted upon, any three members of the seven-member PAC could request the public auditor to prepare a report on a matter of their choosing.

Thereby the three members of the opposition would never be at the mercy of the four members appointed by the government.

To his credit John Dalli, who was then Minister of Finance, accepted my proposal and persuaded his side to do so too. The PAC operated tentatively but effectively, discussing the annual reports of the rest of the public sector, including Malta Drydocks led by a workers’ council, the first time it became openly accountable.

The committee also requested various reports. Reasonable non-partisan effectiveness developed, alongside the emergence of a major shortcoming – governments ended up including a minister or two among their nominees to the PAC. Ex-Speaker Louis Galea was working to change this unwelcome habit which tampered with the arm’s length principle of the committee.

Worse came along on Monday. Speaker Michael Frendo, ruling on a point raised by Transport Minister Austin Gatt, who challenged the agenda set by PAC chairman Charles Mangion, broke new ground.

He had no foreign or local precedent to go by, so he had to set one himself. He ruled that, yes, the committee chairman set the agenda, but the members could demand a vote on it.

That directly undermined a major plank of the PAC, because the four government members could make the committee discard the agenda set by the chairman. Frendo has created a very dangerous precedent which, I feel, should be reviewed with urgency.

It harms the operational efficacy of the Public Accounts Committee which, unlike the House of Representatives, can call witnesses before it. The ruling goes against the public interest by diminishing this important watchdog of the government of the day and the rest of the public sector.

The Speaker’s ill-advised decision takes more emphatic significance when one recalls that Gatt’s objection centred on the chairman’s decision to include for discussion the report drawn up by the public auditor, at the request of the PAC, on the Delimara power station contract. The minister cited two reasons for his opposition to the chairman’s agenda. One was that it had been revealed on Labour’s sound and vision media before it reached the PAC members.

He was right in that regard. His righteousness would have been served had he recorded it at the start of the PAC meeting. But Gatt’s intention ran deeper.

He maintained that, since the full House had already discussed the auditor’s power station report, the PAC had no right to discuss it again.

Gatt, who was responsible for Enemalta throughout the contract saga, which the auditor reported was riddled with shortcomings, such that some even attracted the critical attention of the EU commission, seemed determined that the controversial contract should not be further discussed in the House of Representative forum via the PAC. As it turned out, on Wednesday the Speaker did not uphold that objection.

The power station contract, therefore, remains under the scrutiny of the people’s representative, despite all the government’s efforts and the Speaker’s erroneous one fell swoop on PAC procedure. The story continues…