Government buys air tickets by direct order from the General Workers Union travel agency
The current edition of the Government Gazette lists a direct order by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the purchase of Eur9,400 worth of air tickets from Untours, the agency owned by the General Workers Union.
The tickets were used to take an official delegation to Brazil last spring to check out possible sites for a Maltese embassy/consulate in Sao Paulo.
The information on how much the tickets cost, and the fact that this was a direct order, was in the public domain already because of a reply given to a parliamentary question.
But the most important bit of information – that the direct order was given to the GWU – was not.
There is no indication how much the hotel nights and per diem allowances racked up in terms of costs on this important recce mission.
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Is this general policy by all Ministries?
During my days in the public service, it was imperative – and laid down specifically in the rule-books – to seek quotations, even verbal ones, from different agencies, for travel costs.
Whether the ‘positive’ administration now in power has any knowledge of this requirement appears very doubtful.
What I can say is that, on some occasions, the MLP opposition in the House was scandalized when the rules were allegedly not followed.
We are still getting to know what lies on their inventory of all that is Taghhom Ilkoll.
Assuming that for that price the delegation was formed by at least 6 persons and the stay was for 7 nights, then subsistence allowance (including hotel) would have been in the region of another 9000 Euros.
There would be a Circular advising that such all business be channeled in that direction (nudge, nudge, hint, hint). Reminds me of John Dalli and his daughter.
It is incredible how the Times of Malta has gone silent on nearly all issues.
Paid for being silent.
Still waiting for the Auditor General to start investigating cases from March 2013 onward.
His agenda appears to be chock-full with ‘orders’ to go through as many previous alleged mis-givings as possible.
Brazil per Diem:
Class A – Minister – Chief of Staff/Permanent Secretary 237 euro
Class B – All other civil servants/ministry officials – 213 euro
All figures are as at 2013.
That’s only 16,207 person-weeks worth cost of living increases, then. BAR-GAIN.
SHAME!
Il-kont taghna lkoll. Naqsmuh bhal ahwa Maltin kollha.