Pjazza Teatru Rjal, the open-air theatre on the site of the former Valletta opera house, has more people sitting on its board of directors than it does staff members running the theatre, a new report by the auditor general found.

Following a 2015 restructuring of Malta’s cultural sector, the theatre fell under the umbrella of Arts Council Malta, as did most of Malta’s public cultural organisations.

But the theatre still has a 13-person strong board of directors, more than the arts council itself, the auditor general noted. This is despite the theatre’s own regulations only allowing a maximum of eight board members at any one time.

And while the theatre has 13 people sitting on its board, it only employs five people to actually run the theatre.

To rub salt into the wound, two of the members on the board showed up for fewer than half of the 9 board meetings held throughout the year, often failing to formally notify or justify their absences.

“Yet, the honoraria was paid in full,” the auditor general drily says.

Coffee bar operated without a contract

The report, published on Wednesday, lifts the curtain on a host of other shortcomings in the theatre’s management.

For one thing, the auditor says, the theatre should not be drawing up contracts in the first place, given that it is “not considered as a distinct body with separate legal identity” and does not even have its own bank account, relying instead on the arts council’s benevolence.

Meanwhile, the coffee bar outside the theatre’s doors spent a good 10 months operating without a contract after its initial €231,000 contract came to an end in late 2022.

A new contract for the same operator to manage the bar was eventually signed in October 2023.

The theatre's security arrangements also came under fire. File photo: Matthew Mirabelli

And a contract for security services at the theatre that went €100,000 over budget caught the auditor general’s eye, when the theatre was invoiced for €470,000 rather than the €365,000 previously agreed.

The theatre’s management say that this was because the tender’s value had to be unexpectedly “translated into hours”.

Meanwhile, police conduct certificates for security officers operating at the theatre were only gathered after a request by the NAO, the auditor general said, giving the theatre’s explanation that the certificates were not stored “due to data protection reasons” short shrift.