National Audit Office reports are exposing so many cases of maladministration the situation is now becoming truly worrying. Many are justifiably beginning to wonder whether there are any internal structures within the administration and its agencies that keep a sharp eye on operations to ensure compliance with rules and regulations and prevent abuse.

Particularly worrying is that a number of the cases in question raise strong suspicions of fraud, a matter that is of direct concern to both the government and the taxpayer. Administrative weaknesses are not something that have cropped up now but it is becoming increasingly obvious that the situation is getting worse and more widespread despite political commitments to bring about greater rectitude and order.

Only weeks after the Audit Office exposed sheer lack of good governance at the directorate responsible for road repair and maintenance in Gozo, yet another report has laid bare serious shortcomings at Gozo Channel.

According to the Auditor General’s report, no fewer than 13,000 passengers and 600 vehicles carried by Gozo ferries went unrecorded in the company’s electronic ticketing system, giving rise to strong suspicions of tampering.

As if this were not enough to raise suspicions of fraud, 39,000 passengers and 16,500 vehicles recorded as having crossed the channel never made the trip back to Malta. It looks as if, even though the company is now making a profit on the back of a 22 per cent rise in revenue raised from a greater number of passengers crossing the channel and a 35 per cent drop in fuel costs, there is rampant abuse in the system.

This is unacceptable and the company’s board would need to answer for the abuses. The numbers mentioned by the Audit Office are not insignificant, indicating that no effective system of checks and balances is in place or, worse, somebody is turning a blind eye, as observations made in the past by the Auditor General confirm.

A report in 2013 had revealed what the Audit Office called significant internal control weaknesses, varying from lack of control on overtime (an endemic problem in the government service and government-controlled agencies), inefficient use of human resources, weak budgetary control and unreliable and untraced documents.

It remarked that, despite a raft of measures taken by management since then to tackle these issues, “certain concerns persisted”.

To add to the seriousness of the shortcomings raised, the Audit Office said that, in its original report, it had already drawn attention to the possibility that scanner-resetting issues could lead to “serious abuses”.

At one point, it remarked, when commenting on discrepancies noted, that it is very obvious that terminal duty officers are tampering with the scanners. It spells it out and, yet, the company’s management does not seem to have worked hard enough to put a stop to these discrepancies, which the Audit Office said have become worse.

Since, prima facie, this would appear to amount to dereliction of duty and even fraud, a higher authority ought to step in to investigate for any possible criminal action that can be taken and, also, to ensure that robust internal controls are in place to prevent further abuses.

Ideally, a new board ought to take over the helm of Gozo Channel. A new broom always sweeps clean. Or does it?

This is a Times of Malta print editorial