An Auditor General investigation requested by Parliament's Public Accounts Committee risks hitting a brick wall soon, as the concerned entities are not providing the necessary information for the audit, the Auditor General said on Wednesday.

He told Parliament's National Audit Office Accounts Committee that if the situation persists, his office could seek a remedy from the PAC.

"We are carrying out an audit that was requested by the PAC and we're finding it somewhat difficult," he said when PN MP Darren Carabott - who is also the PAC's chair - asked how the committee could assist his office further in investigations.

"If the concerned entities do not give us the information we will have to come to you with this situation."

Deguara would not identify which investigation or entities he was referring to and the committee members agreed it was not prudent to ask for that information during this particular hearing.

The NAO has three ongoing investigations that were requested by the PAC - one on the Marsa junction project, another on the AUM land contracts, and the most recent one on the Malta Film Commission's spending.

The Office of the Auditor General was set up by Parliament 26 years ago to investigate public entities' accounts and draft reports with recommendations to improve governance in public spending.

On Wednesday, Deguara presented the NAO's 2022 annual report to the committee.

During the hearing, he also pushed for parliament’s PAC to become “less political and more technical”.

Deguara drew unfavourable comparisons between Malta’s PAC and its UK equivalent, and said he also wished MPs sitting on the powerful committee looked into a broader spectrum of issues flagged by the National Audit Office.

The NAO which Deguara leads carried out over 60 audits and issued more than 20 reports in the last year alone. However, parliament’s PAC has spent that time focused solely on an assessment of an NAO report into the highly controversial Electrogas contract, with discussion at times descending into partisan bickering.

He noted that Malta’s PAC was partisan even in its appearance, with government members seated on one side and Opposition members on the other, “as though they’re divided by a fence like that in Gaza”.

In the UK, he noted, public accounts committee members sit at random, irrespective of which party they belong to. Doing so, he argued, “sends out the message that a report is being assessed on technical grounds [rather than politics]”.

PAC chairman Darren Carabott, who also sits on the NAO committee, welcomed Deguara’s feedback and asked him to make more suggestions. Another change the NAO would like to see is for PAC debates to result in more recommendations made to the executive, the committee was told.

Earlier in the session, Deguara highlighted the challenge of recruiting additional auditors. The NAO had issued a public call for additional recruits, but most of the applicants were foreign, he said. That poses a challenge as auditors working for the NAO, which is tasked with scrutinising government and state-run work, must have a good knowledge of local governance systems.

One of the reasons the NAO struggles to find local talent is that the "giant", international audit companies - especially the big four - have much more attractive salary packages.

"We find it very difficult to compete with the private sector," Deguara said. "In terms of remuneration packages, it's almost impossible."

For its last call of applications for senior auditors, the Office received seven applications from Maltese people seeking employment and 37 from non-Maltese people, most of whom are third-country nationals, he said.

"So far our staff are all Maltese but we will soon have to adapt to incorporate foreign workers in our processes," he said.

However, women tend to find working conditions with the Auditor General more favourable for family life, he added.

Deguara also told the committee that audits of public-private partnerships always reveal that when it comes to ensuring that both the government and the private company honour their agreements during the implementation stage of the project, the people in the public service are no match for their counterparts working for the private company.

Procurement is a very long, extensive and complicated process, he said, and it seems the public sector does not have people who are trained enough to ensure the best deal for the government. The private company always seems to have better people and way more resources.

"I am yet to find one PPP in which the government clearly did financially well," he said, adding this is a problem in other countries as well.

"If we carried out six audits in the last 20 years, we always found the government got the short end of the stick."