A road project in Gozo, which had to be completed in two years for €8 million, took five years to complete and cost taxpayers €18.5 million—a staggering €10.5 million over budget.

An audit carried out by the National Audit Office (NAO) of Nadur’s Triq l-Imġarr project confirmed that the project was an exercise in maladministration, with inadequate plans, confusion in contract terms, a deluge of direct orders and variations, and a waste of money in unnecessary studies.

The audit was carried out following a call by independent candidate Arnold Cassola after several investigative reports by The Shift on how Clint Camilleri’s Gozo Ministry was messing up the project.

Through its investigative reports, The Shift reported how, following plans and the commencement of works in 2019 on the main road from Għajnsielem to Nadur, Minister Clint Camilleri halted the project as soon as he took over the Gozo Ministry in 2020.

A reservoir that was excavated on private land next to the road project.

Inexplicably, Camilleri immediately changed the project’s architect. Massive spending and cost overruns started being reported.

The Shift had also found that work was being done by the same contractor on private fields adjacent to the new road, pointing towards the use of public funds for private works. The Gozo Minister had denied these claims.

However, in its audit, the NAO found inadequate administration and poor record-keeping and had difficulty understanding what money was spent on what.  It concluded that a massive €10.5 million was overspent, and the road cost more than twice its original costs.

The NAO also underlined the lack of cooperation by Gozo Ministry officials, led by Permanent Secretary John Borg, in furnishing the audit with the necessary documents on time.

The Nadur Road scandal

In 2018, following a storm, Triq l-Mġarr needed emergency work. Then-Gozo Minister Justyne Caruana started the process with studies that found the road had to be rebuilt.

In 2019, Road Construction Ltd was issued a tender for €8 million for the whole project. The company has been dominating the road works sector in Gozo for decades.

The road’s planned cost was €8 million.

At the beginning of 2020, Prime Minister Robert Abela appointed Clint Camilleri Gozo Minister after he sacked Justyne Caruana.

The new minister immediately appointed a new architect to manage the project on his behalf, and new designs were made.

Since the new designs varied significantly from the original tender, the Gozo Ministry paid the same contractor an additional €4.8 million in claimed variations over the tender’s value.

As this was not enough, in October 2020, Minister Camilleri’s Ministry issued a new direct order, allowing the same contractor to be paid an additional €5.7 million for the same project. No prior authorisations were sought from the Finance Ministry.

This pushed the project’s costs from €8 million to €18.5 million.

The NAO said that it “has concerns on the reason of the abandonment of the plans suggested by the original architect (under Justyne Caruana) and why the Ministry (Clint Camilleri) opted for the suggestions by the contractor’s consultant, which resulted in higher costs since no documentation was provided to justify the change in plan.”

The NAO also found that no signed agreements covered construction works on the road project and that there was no insurance on works for long periods of time.

Also, work registers were not kept, so the NAO found it difficult to establish how the project evolved as none of the certified BOQs (Bills of Quantities), usually certified by the ministry’s architect, were supported by photographs as evidence of the progress of works.

“This limited NAO in visualising the development of the project for audit purposes.”