Film Commission is a one-man band

The recent report of the Auditor General about the Film Commission is titled: ‘Evaluating the role of the Malta Film Commission (MFC) in promoting the Maltese film industry’.

It therefore is an exercise in which the Auditor General tried to establish whether the Film Commission is giving value for money – in other words, whether its expenditure is justified.

Of course, this is not an easy task and the report leaves many questions unanswered. One might say that most of these matters are beyond the core issue of whether the Film Commission is careful on how to spend public money and whether it follows the financial regulations or any guidelines or policies of its own. Admittedly, because of its nature, the Film Commission cannot strictly follow the financial rules applicable to government departments, but this should not be considered as a licence to spend freely without justification or limits and without proper controls.

The audit only sought to determine the extent to which the activities and operations undertaken by the MFC are considered as value for money and embrace good governance principles. Its management and operations were not within the scope of the audit.

A number of good governance issues relating to project management of the Malta Film Week relating to accountability, transparency and financial management were raised These included concerns on the business model employed by MFC to manage such events – the generation of income, procurement of services and respective approval systems concerning expenditure of public funds, as well the checks and balances in.

The auditor’s report says that this situation is further compounded by the centralisation of decision-making to a single point of reference, namely the Film Commissioner as well as by the lack of documentation to support budget prioritisation and selection of service providers rather than appointing a project management committee specifically set to deal with an event of this size at planning, implementation and subsequent phases.

Moreover, the auditor also questioned the extent to which competition and procurement rules were adhered to due to the self-imposed time constraints by the MFC.

The NAO noted that specific event transactions are not classified in a separate cost centre: The Malta Film Awards (MFA) was not treated as a cost centre where its income and expenses were treated separately from the rest of the Malta Film Week. This limitation meant that costs for the whole week could not always be apportioned accordingly. The Malta Film Commission did not always document all decisions taken by the management and ministry approvals concerning certain expenditures. The lack of audit and the absence of formally approved strategies, policies and plans, also placed auditing constraints, limiting the NAO’s review.

The NAO noted that the Malta Film Week (MFW) project fell short of certain best practices and project management criteria. The Commission sought non-financial sponsorships to support the hosting of the MFW and the MFA events in 2022 but did not have contracts in place covering all sponsorships and non-financial agreements it had agreed upon and the MFC did not furnish any relative documentation, including agreements requested. The Commission contended that these services were generally provided against no financial remuneration as suppliers sought publicity and exposure from participation in this event.

The Commission did not carry out any studies to determine the number of production houses that decided to invest in the Maltese Film Industry because of the Malta Film Week. It contended that its main aim was to celebrate the Maltese film professionals and increase the prominence of the sector on a national level.

It is by now more than obvious that the so-called Malta Film Commission is a one-man band. I tried to find who the members of this commission are, but I have to admit defeat. It is just Johann Grech, who apparently does not even have a financial management set-up. Not even a financial controller. No wonder that records are scarce.

This is an area that the NAO failed to investigate on the pretext that it was not asked to do so by anybody. This reflects the mistake of both the PN and Arnold Cassola when they made a specific request to the auditor general rather than requesting him to check how the MFC operates.

Irrespective of the abilities of Johann Grech – who also helps the Labour Party with its publicity during electoral campaigns – a public entity that spends, or invests, so much public money should never be the absolute dominion of one man.

This is what is wrong with the Malta Film Commission: It does not exist and is simply another name for the Malta Film Commissioner!

Apartments for tourists

The Chief Executive Officer of the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA), Carlo Micallef, on Tuesday revealed proposals that would mean apartment owners would need to get the go-ahead from the majority in their block before being granted short term letting licenses.

According to Times of Malta, the new rules would also require landlords to seek fresh approval from the majority of their apartment block neighbours every three years. It is understood the idea surfaced amid complaints of excessive noise, littering and frequent turnover of guests.

Whilst I understand the complaints made by people who reside in blocks of flats, I think that such a rule would only lead to many owners flaunting it. This is an obvious case of over-regulation. MTA cannot possibly monitor all flats let to tourists and it should never impose a regulation that it cannot control.

This is elementary, as Sherlock Holmes would have said.

How many complaints about the flaunting of this rule can MTA handle and follow up daily? Or will MTA be employing a horde of third country nationals to do the job!?

The number of tourists who want to live in holiday flats is always rising since MTA’s efforts keep luring low-cost tourists to visit Malta, rather than attracting high spending ones. Where do youngsters lured to Malta by state subsidised concerts go to sleep?

Complaints about this problem are echoed all over Europe and it is not specific to Malta.

Moving to high end tourism is a good idea but this would take years in the current circumstances.

Perhaps decreasing subsidies to low-cost airlines during the summer months would do the trick.