A government body tasked with managing public properties does not have a centralised register readily offering a snapshot of all properties under its control, an audit has found.

An auditor general report found the Lands Authority is still heavily reliant on physical files to manage its day-to-day functions.

Although “bespoke” property management software is in use, the Lands Authority admitted that it “cannot confirm” that all the property under its control is inputted into the system since a reconciliation with all the physical files never took place.

The authority said the matter will “eventually” be solved as it is in the process of scanning all physical files and any missing property information will be inputted into the system.

However, the authority added that whenever it needs to carry out work on a particular property, staff always pull up the physical file to confirm information in the property management database as there are instances where the database “was no updated correctly”.

The auditor general also found that the authority, and, therefore, the government, is not aware of the market value of the land and property it holds.

Auditor general Charles Deguara recommended that the authority devises a plan to clearly identify and record all government-owned property, while also establishing its value, without undue delay.

The report says the authority pushed back at the suggestion of valuing all properties as it would be a costly and “futile” exercise “since it will not give the authority any added value” and would potentially increase property speculation by third parties.

Lack of enforcement

Yet another issue flagged by the audit was a lack of enforcement by the authority.

Times of Malta has flagged multiple instances of people squatting on public land, including Prime Minister Robert Abela’s law firm occupying a prime Valletta property on a lease that expired in 2017.

The auditor general said the authority did not do regular monitoring to ensure that the contracts’ provisions regulating commercial tenements were observed.

Instances of abuse were either acted upon following reports from the public or in certain cases triggered by actions “occasionally” undertaken by the authority.

The auditor general said that while it is impossible to check all properties, a risk-based approach can be adopted. The authority assured during the audit that it is looking into “possible ways” to monitor breaches of contracts.

“However, the authority is limited with the human resources available. The absolute majority of the contracts carry the same risk since most of the clauses are standard for all contracts across the category,” the authority said in reply to the auditor general.

The audit found that a “significant number” of entries for former church properties transferred to the government were recorded in the property management system with “incorrect details” and, hence, the tenants were not invoiced.

“This resulted in a loss of revenue to the government”, the auditor general noted.

The audit report said that while the authority is working to solve this “complex issue”, efforts should be made to resolve it as soon as possible to avoid huge bills sent to tenants retrospectively.

It was also noted how some €4.4 million owed to the authority, representing 23 per cent of all its arrears, have been pending for 10 years or more.

The auditor general said that given that the prescription period for these arrears is 10 years, some of the pending amounts may not be recoverable if court action is taken against the tenants.

The authority said during the audit that it is continuing with its effort to collect all amounts due and has even managed to collect dues that are technically prescribed by law.