Editorial

In times past, the Auditor General's report was generally published so late that much of what it revealed - and it usually exposed a lot of shortcomings or what the politicians in the opposition camp invariably called "scandals" - would have become history by the time it was laid on the table of the House of Representatives. It is no longer so today. This is a most refreshing development, one that does not appear to have been well appreciated in an age when greater transparency and accountability in the government service are called for regularly, in and out of Parliament.

The National Audit Office, which is independent of the government and examines the accounts of all government ministries and departments, has now gone a step further. For the first time ever, it has published a mid-year report, which, the Auditor says, summarises the findings of the financial and compliance audits of the government and of a number of non-central government organisations concluded up to June 2005 in respect of the financial year ending December 31, 2004.

When considering the constraints within which the office operated for so many years, the publication of the mid-year report is indeed a measure of the progress the office has been able to register in its work. It shows too that contrary to the general perception that inefficiency is the order of the day in Malta today, there are in fact institutions that have been able to measure up to expectations.

In fact, the office's work is directed at helping bring about greater efficiency in the operation of the country's administration. Its mission is brief: to help promote accountability, propriety and best practices in government operations. Those who at one time or another in their lives have had some dealings with any branch of the administration, as we must all have, would readily conclude that the administration's major shortcomings precisely stem from lack of accountability, propriety and best practices.

Which is why the service has earned such a bad name over the years. It has not always been like this. There were times when the service operated with greater efficiency and when workers in practically all categories of the civil service used to feel proud of working for the administration of the country.

Matters began to deteriorate when under the socialist administration of Dom Mintoff partisan politics infiltrated the service and began to hit the efficiency directly. In some places, "political" messengers - and there seemed to be far too many of them in the departments - carried greater "weight" than some of the administrative and executive civil servants.

This, coupled with the way the party in government treated workers in trade unions that did not form part of the Labour Party/General Workers' Union orbit, led to a general degradation of the service and to a sharp drop in the workers' morale.

New political masters and several reform drives have brought about improvement in the service, particularly in some sectors, but there is a great deal of ground that has yet to be covered, as one report after another by the Auditor General show only too well.

The mid-year report is no exception in terms of the string of shortcomings found in the departments and ministries. There is a lot that ought not to have happened or that ought to have been checked in time. What counts most though is that once the shortcomings are revealed, action is taken to rectify them. The Auditor's office is doing a good job. Well done.