Clint Camilleri’s club

The latest NAO report reveals that Minister Clint Camilleri is running his own personal club using more millions of our euro every year. Under the guise of ‘Cultural Initiatives and Thematic Events’, Camilleri’s Gozo ministry is squandering millions, mostly through direct orders, with no trace kept as to why or how they’re spent.

To make matters worse, Camilleri doesn’t even bother publishing those direct orders in the Government Gazette as he is legally obliged to do, so nobody finds out about them. What happens in Gozo stays in Gozo.

The National Audit Office sought to establish whether funds allocated to the Gozo ministry under ‘Cultural initiatives and Thematic events’ were in accordance with the applicable guidelines and whether the funded events were selected in a transparent manner. They weren’t.

The NAO sought to determine “whether beneficiaries complied with the terms and conditions”. They didn’t.

The money allocated to Camilleri for cultural initiatives has increased steadily,  almost doubling in 4 years from €900,000 to €1.5 million. What’s even more worrying is that in 2024, the minister was allocated €1.5 million for cultural events but he actually spent more than double that – €3.3million.

How that money is disbursed is decided by a Board – not an independent board of experts, but three members of Camilleri’s ministry and a secretary.  That so-called Board has no standard operating procedures or frameworks which guide its work, its function or even its responsibilities.

There’s not even an established process as to how that Board is established or how its members are selected. Those board members don’t even need any experience or expertise in the arts, culture, or economics.  In fact, you don’t need to possess any skills or background in anything remotely cultural to sit on that Board.  Presumably, Camilleri just picks them.

The NAO officials couldn’t believe their eyes.  That Board keeps absolutely no record of anything.  The secretary doesn’t take any minutes at meetings, if any are held. No record is kept anywhere. The NAO  concluded that “there was no transparency on how decisions were actually taken”.  Those decisions, if they were taken by any Board at all, cost us €3.3 million last year alone.

When the NAO dug deeper, it found that Camilleri’s ministry did not have “any established organisational framework or SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) formally outlining the practices to be followed by the directorate’s officers at the application and project evaluation stage”.

The NAO found no rules on how to determine eligibility for those millions, except that “fireworks expenses are ineligible under this funding scheme”. But that didn’t stop the Gozo ministry from burning our money on fireworks.  In the small sample the NAO looked at, there were at least €19,500 awarded for “fireworks and special effects”, excluding VAT, and another €7,080 for “a synchronised fireworks display” and another €425 for associated insurance cover.

The Gozo ministry in fact went over its budget for five years in a row.

The NAO couldn’t understand how this was possible.  But Gozo ministry officials admitted that they had simply dropped  “the clause excluding fireworks” in the agreement for the event. Despite the regulations, “the expenses were processed in line with the terms of the agreement at the time”.

One other requirement for eligibility for funding from that cultural initiative fund was that events were “of a non-profitable nature”.  Yet Minister Camilleri’s Board approved a sponsorship of €6,000 for “a fundraising barbecue by a voluntary organisation” – effectively helping the organisation generate income for itself using taxpayers’ money.

That Cultural Initiative and Thematic Events Fund is specifically intended for cultural events that promote the customs and conditions of the Gozitan community.  The NAO was utterly perplexed as to how Camilleri spent €98,600 on a New Year’s event.

Even worse, Camilleri’s ministry used €286,089 of that cultural initiative budget to fund the general assembly of a European organisation. Over €52,000 was handed over to three catering establishments in Gozo by direct order approved by Camilleri’s ministry.

Even in the small sample the NAO looked at, it found utter chaos and illegalities. Fiscal receipts were issued weeks, even up to eight months, after payment was affected.  Some of those receipts weren’t even dated. The ministry ran two different application processes for those funds – one via e-mail with little stringency and a different, more onerous electronic identification system. So those who wanted an easy ride went through the direct e-mail route, which required fewer obligations.

Applicants for those funds were meant to submit their applications at least three months before the event.  But Camilleri’s ministry still accepted and approved applications submitted less than one month before the event.

The organisations receiving the funds had to be registered with the Office of the Commissioner for Voluntary organisations and fully compliant with existing legislation. But in three cases that the NAO sampled, there was no evidence that the organisation awarded the funding was compliant.

Those same organisations were also “at times granted certain flexibilities” from clauses stipulated in their contracts.  For example, they were meant to submit itemised final income and expenditure statements before being given the money.  Yet the Gozo ministry still disbursed those funds without the statement of expenditure.   When the NAO complained to the Gozo ministry about this, only a summary of expenditure items was made available.

That NAO report gives us a glimpse of the irresponsibility reigning in Gozo. In one case, the ministry’s Board approved €35,000 for one event. But the organiser spent €56,000 and after the event went back to the Board asking for more.  Unbelievably, the Board unanimously agreed to hand over another €15,000 and simply included an addendum to the original agreement retrospectively. The Board didn’t even bother minuting that decision.

The NAO found that, in its small sample, five direct orders awarded by Camilleri’s ministry valued at €155,675 had not been published. No wonder Minister Camilleri isn’t publishing those direct orders in the Government Gazette.