NAO stands by its report: ‘No policy regulated fuel procurement committee before 2011’

The 2006 fuel procurement advisory committee report was "a set of recommendations" and not "a policy" establishing criteria which the Fuel Procurement Committee (FPC) should have followed in awarding contracts.

The Public Accounts Committee today continued with its hearing of the Auditor General's report of post-2008 fuel procurement carried out by Enemalta.

The spotlight was on the NAO report which said the FPC "operated in a policy vacuum" until the first fuel procurement policy was implemented in 2011.

Presenting a report which then infrastructure minister Austin Gatt tabled in parliament in April 2006, Nationalist MP Beppe Fenech Adami said Gatt had declared the report would be adopted by Enemalta.

But NAO official Keith Merceica, flanked by Auditor General Anthony C. Mifsud and deputy auditor general Charles Deguara, insisted that the report "was a set of recommendations and not a policy".

"By no stretch of imagination can that document be described as a policy. If you want to understand what a policy document is refer to the fuel procurement policy adopted in 2011," Mercieca said.

With the 2011 policy document in hand, he added: "This is what justifies the purchase of millions of euros in fuel and not this paragraph [2006 report]".

Mercieca challenged Fenech Adami to "quote from the report guidelines to the procurement committee on how it should evaluate tenders".

"There is nothing in the 2006 document which guides the FPC in providing paraments for tenders evaluation," he reiterated. He also explained that the document was about hedging strategy.

The NAO officials pointed out that, if they were to takes Fenech Adami's claim the document was a policy, then Enemalta's shortcomings would take a new twist.

"It would mean that Enemalta would have blatantly ignored the policy."

The Opposition's line of questioning was whoever clear: questions made by Fenech Adami and subsequently Jason Azzopardi, implied that Austin Gatt had ordered the implementation of a policy in 2006 but Enemalta failed to provide the NAO with this information.

"Did you ask whether the report was adopted as a policy?" Fenech Adami asked.

"We asked whether there was a policy between 2008 and 2010 and we were told no," the NAO replied.

Fenech Adami insisted that Austin Gatt "said the recommendations have been adopted during a speech in parliament.

"Did Enemalta refer to you this information?: Fenech Adami asked. "What I'm saying is that there had been a shortcoming from those who were giving you the information after failing to say that Austin Gatt was to implement the report."

Fenech Adami continued it was "relevant" that a minister appeared before parliament to say the recommendations would be adopted. "This document is not a policy," Mercieca repeated for the umpteenth time.

Parliamentary secretary for justice Owen Bonnici also asked Fenech Adami to explain how the 2006 report was a policy.

"We will bring in Roderick Chalmers to explain that," Fenech Adami replied.

Taking of minutes started deteriorating in 2003

According to Owen Bonnici, minutes taken down by the FPC started deteriorating in 2003. Until then, the parliamentary secretary said, minutes were all typed out and signed.

Bonnici said the deterioration of minutes corresponded when alleged corruption in oil tenders occurred.

"In December 2003, a contract was awarded to TOTSA even though it had not submitted a bid," Bonnici said.

The NAO officials however could not provide the PAC members with an answer as "it was outside audit scope".