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Theoretically speaking, a new law that will remove the politician's rubber-stamp from decisions on government land and expropriation, should prevent another 'Gaffarena' from happening.
That fateful expropriation, a criminal waste of [euro]1.6 million paid out to the property entrepreneur Marco Gaffarena in government lands and cash for his half-share in an Old Mint Street palazzo, became the catalyst for a sensational investigation by the National Audit Office and the resignation of lands parliamentary secretary Michael Falzon.
The Prime Minister has filed a case to recoup the lands passed on to Gaffarena, and the case gave rise to a vast reform that will turn the Government Property Department into an agency, the Lands Authority.
The lynchpin of the reform is strictly speaking the removal of the minister's approval of decisions on public land and instead, its delegation to a 10-person board of governors that will include an MP from the Opposition. Crucially, apart from a chief executive officer in charge of operations, a chief audit officer - a sort of 'lands ombudsman' if you will - will be tasked not just with own-initiative audits but mandatory investigations of any transaction upwards of [euro]100,000.
The Opposition is unconvinced, saying the audit officer will be answerable - and in turn subdued by - the CEO and the board of governors. But Deborah Schembri, the new parliamentary secretary who took over from Falzon and was tasked with the reform that the Gaffarena scandal gave rise to, is intent on extolling the virtues of how the authority will work.
"We're placing a lot of importance on the role of the auditor, by introducing checks and balances where these never existed inside the GPD," Schembri says.
"Although the board of governors will select the audit officer, s/he cannot be removed by that same board but by the House of Representatives. And where independence is concerned, it is who can remove you that's more important here.
"The auditor will not just...