Times of Malta Editorial - Fairmount, BWSC a tale of two contracts

Fairmount and BWSC are unlikely to move out of the political radar screen unless a way is found of neutralising the fallout that has arisen from the claims of corruption made in the two cases. Both are politically damaging to the Nationalist government and both will be taken as examples showing lack of good governance and political accountability.
In both cases too, it is clear that public opinion is not satisfied with the outcome of the investigations done so far and demands for further action aimed at finding the whole truth are expected to build up over time. This is as it should be for taxpayers' money is involved in both contracts.
Particularly worrying is the way the government has been trying to deflect the unfavourable impact on political responsibility resulting from, in the case of the Fairmount, the study made by an auditing firm, and, in the second, the report by the Auditor General, when, had it been more vigilant at every stage leading to the award of the contracts, it would have avoided the flak it is getting now.
It would seem that often enough the government is acting rashly as in its enthusiasm to defend itself at all costs it fails to adequately assess the implications of assessments made by those whom it asks to investigate. This has glaringly been the case in the Fairmount ship conversion contracts and, even more so, in that of the award of the contract for new power generation plant at Delimara.
It is all very well for the government to say now that it would seriously look into the recommendations made by the Auditor General in the case of the Delimara contract. But the investigation is as yet inconclusive. The mind simply boggles at the number of serious shortcomings listed by the Auditor General.
In the case of the Fairmount, all is sadly lost as the dockyard has now been closed and sold to an Italian company when, had there been greater job responsibility all round, from workers at shop-floor level to management, the board and the ministry responsible for the shipyards, the situation could have taken a different turn.
Some may well argue that the writing had been on the wall for years. There is more than a grain of truth in this as none of the reforms launched since 1982 had borne fruit. Even so, one of the conclusions reached by the auditing firm investigating the Fairmount contract beggars belief. In plain language, it was established that the job was a loss-making venture before it even began. This is far too serious to be taken lightly by anyone, more so by the ministry that was responsible for the shipyards.
The auditing firm found that the yard's management allowed the contracts to be worded in a way that gave the client the upper-hand in most situations. And what is one to make of the remark that the executive management "may have misled" the board of directors, and its shareholder, by focusing excessively on the revenue generated by the two contracts while providing unrealistic "expectations of profit contribution" when it was very unlikely that there would have ever been profit at the negotiated price?
In the case of both the Fairmount contracts and in that of the BWSC, many questions remain unanswered. Good governance, propriety and accountability demand that the tale in both cases does not end before the whole truth is found.