The weak enforcement of laws and regulations is endemic in many areas of public service. An agency which is itself responsible for enforcing compliance with the rules is guilty of lack of compliance with standards of internal governance.

The case was highlighted by the National Audit Office (NAO) in its report on the Local Enforcement Systems Agency (LESA) – a government entity responsible for local enforcement.

Auditor General Charles Daguara said in his report it was “unacceptable” that the agency handling millions of euros worth of traffic fines has €18.1 million in uncollected fines and penalties. This denotes, he said, “a lack of good governance, accountability and transparency”. Furthermore, LESA has not even finalised its audited financial statements for the last six years.

The website of the Local Councils Association defines LESA’s role in the local government structure. It states that “as an Executive Agency of the Government of Malta, the main function of LESA is to provide the enforcement of laws, regulations or bye-laws and review the work of local enforcement”.

The association says that “investment in LESA’s human resources has been of utmost importance due to the emerging responsibilities and duties entrusted to it. In this regard, LESA continuously invests in the training of its officers and yearly increases its workforce through the recruitment processes”. 

Yet, an agency which should really be setting an example to others, due to its role in enforcing laws, is being managed in a way that is most worrying. LESA CEO Svetlick Flores acknowledged the lack of improvement in the areas highlighted in the NAO report.

He adds that a full-time financial controller was meant to be engaged by the agency but this has not materialised. He did not provide the reasons for this management failure. Undoubtedly, the accounting function can be outsourced to a private firm if no suitable candidate is found to fill the critical financial controller post.

But LESA’s endemic failures of governance are even more deep-rooted. In December 2021, Times of Malta reported that hundreds of contraventions issued to politicians, their aides, businesspeople and former top LESA officials in the previous five years had been deleted from the agency’s systems. The individuals in question avoided paying fines for all types of infringements, including over-speeding. Such corrupt practices are probably made possible by political interference in the management of an agency whose sole objective should be providing a good service to the public.

Quasi-autonomous non-government organisations are often funded by taxpayers’ money to promote the public’s interest. But the public’s trust in them is severely undermined when incompetent management, corruption and undue political influence weaken their governance.

The finance minister has often stressed the importance of changing the culture that tolerates non-compliance with tax collection.

The way agencies like LESA go about their business seriously undermines the credibility of the “tone from the top”, which is anyway unconvincing because few other government ministers reiterate this message.

There is very little evidence of the steely political will that is necessary to ensure all government entities embed good governance practices in their management processes.

The governance weaknesses in LESA are not unique. Unfortunately, similar lax enforcement is evident in other government entities. The government must send a clear message to all those tasked with delivering adequate public services: they must give good value for taxpayers’ money. 

Public trust in public entities can only be gained if government entities are seen to be working for the common good and not in the interests of the politically well-connected.