Internal audit halts marine software development project

An internal government audit being carried out by the Ministry for Economy has halted a marine software development project being carried out by a foreign company in Malta in partnership with the government.

It is not clear what sparked the audit that has been going on since the first week of May.

"In view of the fact that an audit is presently being performed, the Ministry for the Economy, Investment and Small Business may not advance any comments at this stage," a spokesperson for Economy Minister Chris Cardona told MaltaToday.

The initiative, the Marine Software Engineering Cluster of Excellence (MARSEC-XL), is a public-private partnership aimed at developing a specialised maritime ICT workforce and attracting foreign investment and international research funding.

Since 2010, the initiative had its own line item of €300,000 in the budget. It was also voted for in Budget 2013, but no funds were issued due to the ongoing audit.

Recently, MARSEC-XL became one of 30 partners across Europe to take part in the MONALISA 2.0 project, the Swedish Maritime Administration's EU project. The goal behind the project is to achieve greater efficiency, higher safety and reduced environmental impact.

According to MARSEC-XL CEO Geir Fagerhus and President Krystyna Wojnarowicz, the MONALISA 2.0 project was also "pre-approved" by Transport Malta in March 2013.

But now, the directors claim to have been left in the dark over the future of their project.

"Because of the audit - and we don't know why it is even being carried out - no funds have been forwarded this year," Fagerhus and Wojnarowicz said.

The lack of funds has resulted in employees resigning, leaving the project at a standstill. "To date, 12 highly specialised ICT jobs have been lost," they added.

Matters worsened when a police report was filed against two directors after they attempted to approach the permanent secretary within the Ministry for Economy, in an unscheduled visit to the ministry on 20 May.

That day, Malta was hosting European Maritime Day and, according to Wojnarowicz, they wanted to brief the permanent secretary on matters related to the event.

"But a meeting with the permanent secretary or her assistant was denied," Wojnarowicz said. While they were hosting international guests at a restaurant, police officers turned up outside the restaurant to inform them they shouldn't approach the permanent secretary without first holding an appointment.

MaltaToday is informed that the measure was taken due to the same investigative audit being carried out.

"Following this incident, we wrote to Minister Cardona, to parliamentary secretary Edward Zammit Lewis and to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat requesting an apology and an explanation regarding the incident. At that stage we thought it was an unfortunate misunderstanding... but to date we have not received any feedback," Wojnarowicz added.