PN on minister’s boozy bill in Dubai: ‘An insult to workers’

The Nationalist Party has dubbed an embarrassing audit of the economy minister’s alcohol spend during a Dubai visit during Malta day, as “an insult to workers”.

Reacting to news of the NAO’s audit of Chris Cardona’s ministerial trips, the PN said that €758 spend on alcohol in Dubai back in 2015 over some three days “was higher than the minimum wage.”

On his part, Cardona’s ministry has attempted to defend its spend by saying it will refund any expenditure that should not be shouldered by taxpayers.

The €758 bill, from a three-day official trip, included €318 from a hotel minibar. Cardona was in Dubai with chief of staff Mario Azzopardi and personal assistant Dana Bonnici.

A spokeswoman said the total amount spent on alcohol was €438, with the rest of the money charged for meals. “The bill included €438 on alcohol, which is known for being quite expensive in Dubai.

According to the NAO, the alcohol spend was a purchase that was “not considered as relating to official business” but was claimed as travel expenditure.

The NAO also said that in a trip to the Ukraine, a receipt for the purchase of €296 in personal items, were paid out of the contingency money granted to the travelling officer.

Additionally, the Ukraine trip of 19-24 June, 2015, saw the €1,190 accommodation expenses included under both ‘hotel bill’ and ‘other receipts’ – an error that resulted in the refund of €327 to the travelling officer, when it should have been the ministry to be reimbursed €863.

The NAO was also irked that a “politically-exposed person” – no name identified – was given advances for use during visits abroad in the form of cash, when other travelling officers received theirs by means of a credit transfer.

In nine out of 10 official and ministerial trips reviewed by the NAO for testing, the breakdown of spending failed to include the actual air fares of €29,000, and one three-day trip to Monaco in May 2015 did not include €8,000 in accommodation expenses.

When the complete invoice for the Monaco trip was requested by NAO to verify the nature of any additional charges, the ministry for the economy said that the full documentation was not available and “probably misplaced”.

And the post-travel submissions form for the Monaco trip was not even traced to file, because the ministry did not compile it before the NAO’s request.

The NAO was even suspicious of misplaced items from the ministry located at Palazzo Zondadori and the Millennia Building where other offices are hosted, saying in five instances the quantity of assets as recorded in the inventory differed from what was found on site: three paintings were said to be missing and a number of paintings were found in a store.

In its response to the NAO, the ministry for the economy said it would be taking necessary action to recoup the overpayment to the person travelling to Ukraine, and that it “will try to limit the amount of cash advances”, and also ensure bills from official business are provided in the English language.