PN Wants Answers From New Education Minister Over Shooting Range That Cost Taxpayer Double Its Estimate
New Education Minister Clifton Grima owes the country an explanation as to why Malta’s state-of-the-art shooting range, completed in 2018, ended up costing the country double what it was expected to, according to PN candidate Justin Schembri
During a press conference on the education sector this morning, Schembri ran through a number of the investigation’s findings, questioning why the police had not started an investigation into the possible misappropriation funds.
Grima, who was appointed minister this week following the resignation of Justyne Caruana, as Parliamentary Secretary for Sport oversaw the project’s implementation just in time for the start of the 2018 Shooting World Cup, which Malta hosted.
“We are mentioning these facts to raise issues we were talking about last year and which tarnish the reputation of minister Clifton Grima,” Schembri said.
In December last year, an NAO audit report found there to have been gross mismanagement and financial irregularities in the project’s execution.
The project has ended up costing €13 million, almost double the €7 million it was meant to cost.
Schembri said that Malta was aware that it would be hosting the World Cup in 2018 well in advance, meaning there was no excuse to justify contracts being awarded by direct order at the last minute.
Long-term education strategy needed
The party’s spokesperson for education Clyde Puli noted that Caruana’s resignation over a phantom €15,000 contract given to her associate Daniel Bogdanovic had not happened in a vacuum and was one of many other similar stories which have plagued the Education Ministry since the start of the legislature.
He pointed to accusations of bribery and corruption at the Foundation for Tomorrow’s schools, as well as the controversy surrounding the American University of Malta as evidence of this.
Puli said that with the ministry having been left without any leadership over the past months and with the resumption of schools fast approaching, Grima needed to hit the ground running to ensure the country has a strategy for the reopening of schools in the immediate term.
He said that the decision would ultimately need to be based on the latest available information about the Maltese epidemic, but stressed that more clarity was required on the part of all stakeholders.
“All we know is that they have only started discussing what is going to happen with the unions,” Puli said.
Thinking further ahead, he said the country also needed a comprehensive and coherent national strategy on education.
He stressed that the challenges facing the sector would not be solved if the minister comes in, and like his predecessor, “starts shooting from the hip” and appoints inexperienced individuals as persons of trust and entrusts them with important reforms.
Malta’s system, Puli said, was failing at identifying problems early on in children’s school life with the consequences being carried over into their older years.
“We can’t keep changing strategy every time we have a new minister, which, at this rate, seems like it will be very often,” Puli said, pointing out that Grima is the fourth education minister in this legislature.
Despite its investment in education, Maltese students continue to underperform, doing considerably worse in assessments than their European peers.
“Our children, when compared to children in other countries, have been shown to have problems with reading as well as science and mathematics,” Puli said.
He also pointed to a recent study which found that 5,000 students in Malta did not have access to a laptop, despite teaching being forced online for prolonged periods of time over the past two years.
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