A Finance Ministry unit that handles all direct order requests by ministries and government agencies is managed by a person employed through a direct order, the Times of Malta learned.

Carmel Tonna was employed last August to head the unit that falls directly under the supervision of Finance Minister Edward Scicluna.

The position, civil service sources said, was considered to be sensitive since the direct orders the unit was asked to approve would run into millions of euros. Still, the Finance Ministry ironically opted to recruit its head through direct order rather than via the public service’s normal channels.

According to Finance Ministry rules, direct orders are only to be used in exceptional cases, where work or services requested are either unplanned or limited to  time constraints in their execution.

Direct orders exceeding €10,000 in value have to be cleared by Mr Tonna’s unit and the Finance Ministry’s permanent secretary.

Yet, such rules were, in many instances, only observed in the breach with the Finance Ministry merely rubber-stamping decisions, the sources said.

No reply was forthcoming when the Finance Ministry was asked why Mr Tonna was engaged by direct order.

READ: Disqualified firm owned by former Labour MP gets €600,000 direct order

It would only say that “nothing has changed in the ministry with regard to the post mentioned and that the same arrangements have been kept in place”.

Three receptionists were also employed at the Finance Ministry by direct order, the sources said.

During the second half of 2017, the ministry allocated a €16,000 direct order to lawyer Paul Lia, who usually appears for the Labour Party in court cases, and two contracts worth more than €27,000 to Pierre Cachia to provide “media services”.

The ministry was asked what services Mr Cachia, a former employee of Labour’s One TV, was providing once the ministry already had a full-time communications officer, but it did not reply by the time of writing.