Only days after the government announced plans to start talks with an Italian company for the sale of the ship repair yard, a report on an analysis of the Fairmount projects conducted by a firm of auditors has shown that the yard made a staggering loss of over €30 million on the jobs. What a sad end to the story of an enterprise that has given the island so many heartaches and involved the taxpayer in such a huge expense ever since the Admiralty handed it over for commercialisation!
Even though the yard is now up for privatisation - hopefully within the shortest time possible - the General Workers' Union is right: there ought to be an inquiry into the matter. Particularly strange are some of the comments made by the Infrastructure Ministry. It said the losses showed that, while the company had to diversify its activities, it lacked the necessary contractual, planning and productive abilities. It also lacked the managerial structures and operational capacity to negotiate and successfully execute these contracts. So, in the light of all this, how could the yard take up the work? Which enterprise goes for a job it knows it cannot handle?
Who was supposed to oversee its operations? Considering the heavy subsidy the government was paying for its running, one would have thought it was the government's duty to follow its work programme and schedule to ensure that the taxpayer's money was being well spent. Did it do this? After all, the Fairmount conversion contract was no ordinary job.
At what stage did the government learn that the yard had gone astray in the calculations made?
The matter raises so many issues and questions that only an inquiry can provide the answers. Over and above all this, there is the very important matter of good governance and political accountability and responsibility. It is all very well for the ministry to say, as it did in this case, that the negative experience showed that the public sector lacked the resources and experience to take major commercial risks that involved public funds, especially in an enterprise where political activism had been part of everyday life. But, when so much money had been spent over the years to keep the yard afloat, surely the government could have been more careful to ensure that the yard would not shoot at its feet, as it were.
As it happens, only three days before it made its comments on the Fairmount losses, the same ministry, replying to the reaction to an internal Enemalta report, said government ministers had a responsibility before Parliament and the people to ensure that all work at Enemalta and other public entities was done well and that it conformed to the priorities identified by the government. Well, it would seem the Administration was not all that alert after all to what was actually happening at the shipyard or, for that matter, at the VAT Department.
In the case of the shipyard, there is absolutely no doubt that both the General Workers' Union and the Labour Party share heavy political responsibility for many of the events that progressively led to its closure.
Indeed, one Nationalist Administration owes its downfall to industrial action - a seven-month overtime ban - by the GWU.
But these historical facts in no way explain why the shipyard should, today, have made such a heavy loss on two contracts. Who is going to take political responsibility for this?