Joseph Muscat ought to stop saying that “things could have been done better” or that something was just a “mistake” every time his government blunders.

Two years into its legislative term, it is time for the government to start getting things right from the start. The fact that it is often failing to so suggests amateurism, rashness and political convenience.

The latest case, over the bailout of a company holding the Café Premier lease, is riddled with shortcomings, which, in the words of the National Audit Office, “detract from the prudence expected” in disbursements of such magnitude. The Opposition has more appropriately called the shortcomings scandalous.

The government’s reasons for the unorthodox way it bought back the lease are far from convincing. Bringing up past misdemeanours by the Nationalist Party in government may please Labour Party supporters but it will not impress the country. The audit office argues that the absence of documentation substantiating the government’s reasons is a significant shortcoming.

However, what sticks out is the non-involvement, from the start, of the government property department, the entity which should have been given charge of the deal, that is, if the need for a bailout was all that advisable, which was not. In fact, it would have served the taxpayer better had the administration pursued the court action over the rent and tax arrears due to the government.

Rather than doing this, the government strangely chose to bail out the company. The audit office did not mince words when it said that “poor governance” was a factor central to the shortcoming of not involving the government property department from the initial stages of negotiations.

The amount paid by the government reflected a fair market value, but the audit office argued that this did not necessarily imply that value for money was achieved. It felt the withdrawal of legal action “without clear justification or documentation” had “detracted from the required level of transparency expected in such a decision”.

There are other issues, such as whether or not the Prime Minister was at any time involved in the process that led to the deal, or in the deal negotiations.

The Nationalist Party claimed Dr Muscat was directly involved in the negotiations, but the Prime Minister is denying this, saying he had not been involved “in any form or manner” and that he had passed the matter on to advisers and civil servants.

Why did he not do the most obvious thing expected of him and pass it on to the competent government authority? Not only did the government not allow the court case to take its course, thereby justifying the conclusion that the administration was bailing out the company, but the deal ended up costing the taxpayer money as well.

One company director denied this was commission, but the audit office left little room for doubt, making it clear it had established that the payment of €210,000 to M&A Investments Ltd was an “intermediary payment” – a brokerage fee equivalent to five per cent of the transfer value of €4.2 million.

This is yet another case in which the government has failed to act judiciously, going against norms that the party committed itself to upholding before the election.

Bypassing the property department is no ordinary mistake. Compounding this with a lack of transparency and poor governance is unacceptable for a government that seeks to project itself as a champion of correctness.