The shambles uncovered by the Auditor General in his inspection of Enemalta Corporation procurement was thoroughly unexpected. Enemalta had a strong board. It is an established institution which, one would have thought, had perfected policies and procedures at all levels, not just procurement meetings.

Obviously this was not the case. Among other things the corpor-ation was failing in corporate governance. Had that not been the case the entity’s internal auditor would have examined procedures as a matter of course and reported on their failings.

Reading between the lines of what is being said and written now, once Enemalta became the responsibility of Tonio Fenech, then Finance Minister and an auditor by profession, he became aware of the shambles and set about cleaning the dirty stables he had inherited.

But the damage had been done and he did not reveal it himself, perhaps not to embarrass his predecessor at the helm, Minister Austin Gatt, who now breathes easily in the stock excuse that he is no longer in politics. Maybe not. But that doesn’t mean that, like all ministers before and after, he is not responsible for what took place under his watch.

The end of the affair is far away. The Prime Minister is pressing the Leader of the Opposition to accept political responsibility for what the Auditor General reported. The Energy Minister has referred the Auditor General’s report to the police to assess whether there are criminal implications in what the Auditor General stated.

Sadly, this will take a long time to surface. I do not believe the police are properly attired to chase fiscal criminality. They had been low on resources, with one man having to tackle all that was thrown at him. That man, Angelo Gafà, has now been transferred.

I do not know whether he has been placed in a position where his talent and training can be better utilised. Nor do I know who has replaced him. But I do know that the Commissioner of Police has a resources problem. He has already indicated that he wants to expand the force. What is required, whether expansion is justified or not – it probably is – is a proper tally and allocation of the resources available to him.

The Commissioner of Police has a resources problem. He has already indicated that he wants to expand the force

When we talk and think of the police we fit them into society’s need to be protected by the force in the maintenance of law and order. That is a paramount requirement. Yet in today’s society, as can be seen by the Enemalta referral, there are other requirements which also have to be met.

Fighting fiscal criminality is one of them. The Commissioner knows that as much as anyone else. But can he do enough with the resources at his disposal?

This is a matter that has also to be tackled at the political level. The minister in charge of the police has to be able to make a case with the Minister of Finance for additional resources in next year’s budget, assuming none can be provided now. Given the state of the public finances, the size of the budgetary deficit and the need to trim expenditure rather than increase it, that is going to be a tall order.

Except that trimming expenditure does not always necessarily translate into cutting it. The starting point is to exact higher value for a given level of expenditure.

The next point is to prioritise. We may well say that public expenditure has to be contained. But then there are requirements which are not satisfied by a stock reply that we must concentrate on cutting the deficit, starting with reducing expenditure.

There are expenditure heads, like the police, health and education, which require a critical review of their expenditure. Once that has been carried out and a programme of action prepared for implementation, it may well be that higher allocations are still required.

The Minister of Finance has a mother of jobs to deal with. It requires all his energies and focus. He cannot solve the problem within two budgets, but a real start has to be made.

Which makes the task of the Commissioner of Police of gaining additional resources all the heavier. Yet try he must. What was going on at Enemalta Corpor-ation may have been going on elsewhere. The police are going to have their work cut out to deal with all that is referred to them, in a context where civil society is demanding more protection.

It is going to be interesting to see whether the Minister of Finance can come out with a review of the fiscal situation in mid-year. His budget team are busy starting consultations for next year’s budget.

Yet the starting point has to be what is going to be the outcome this year.

It is not a matter of satisfying Brussels. That has to be done or a price will have to be paid. But in the first instance, setting the public finances to rights is a domestic issue which cannot be ignored.