Auditor acted within constitutional remit and should be ‘praised, not censured’, Azopardi tells Parliament  

The former Principal Auditor acted within his constitutional remit in preparing his 2018/19 report, Opposition Leader Keith Azopardi said on Friday, rejecting Government claims of overreach as a “smokescreen” to avoid addressing substantive issues around spending, contracts and oversight. 

Addressing Parliament, Mr Azopardi warned that the Government motion on the audit report threatened to erode Gibraltar’s constitutional safeguards, arguing it risked damaging the protections designed to limit executive power by “usurping” the auditor’s role and “trashing” his reputation. 

He said that even if factual inaccuracies existed in the report, “that is not a cause for the Government’s assaults on him. It certainly does not justify it.”  

“The problem of doing it in the way that they’re doing it is that they are bringing the House down with all the constitutional protections,” Mr Azopardi said. 

The Leader of the Opposition was speaking during the second day of his address on a motion brought by the Gibraltar Government to reject parts of the 2018/19 report over claims of overreach, bias and inaccuracies. The motion also calls on the Government to table a counter report. 

But Mr Azopardi said the protections afforded to constitutional officers like the Principal Auditor existed to prevent exactly this type of political pressure.  

The Principal Auditor, he argued, was not only required to issue independent findings but was constitutionally insulated from direction or control.  

Targeting the auditor’s conduct through a parliamentary motion risked weakening that independence for the future, Parliament was told, and the Government’s actions, if left unchecked, could set a precedent that undermined mechanisms designed to safeguard accountability. 

By way of example, Mr Azopardi said the auditor’s concern about how aspects of the housing allocation policy were administered was “well within what he can do”, adding that the review focused on “administration of policy rather than questioning the policy itself”.  

He described this distinction as fundamental to the debate and central to long-established legal principles in both Gibraltar and the UK. 

He criticised the Chief Minister’s reliance on the UK National Audit Office code in his submissions, describing it as “palpable nonsense”.  

The UK legislation post-dated Gibraltar’s 1977 Act and therefore could not be imported “through some kind of side wind”, he said, adding that if such codes were automatically applicable, “there would be thousands of other codes out there under English legislation” that would also apply, and that this was untenable. 

Mr Azopardi argued that even if the UK restriction on questioning policy existed in Gibraltar, the auditor had not challenged policy but rather was examining its effectiveness, including areas such as overtime, procurement, ex gratia payments and arrears.  

There was a difference “between commenting on policy and commenting on the administration of policy”. 

He also addressed the question of whether the auditor could express a view in favour of establishing a Public Accounts Committee, a politically contentious issue on which the Government and the GSD are at odds. 

The Government rejects the establishing of a Public Accounts Committee, while the GSD believes it is a vital element to ensure transparency, a view shared by the former auditor in the report which led to accusations of political bias. 

But Mr Azopardi said the former auditor, as an officer of Parliament, was entitled to hold and voice such a view. 

This would be “a committee of this Parliament and not a Government department”, he said, adding that the former auditor was entitled to express views on the functioning of parliamentary oversight. 

Mr Azopardi said the Government’s reaction to the references in the 2018/19 report to a Public Accounts Committee was “massively, massively overblown”, noting that only a few paragraphs in a 600-page report referred to the issue.  

He said the fact the auditor and the Opposition shared the same view on the merits of a committee did not constitute bias, adding that when former senior politicians had publicly opposed such committees, they had never been described as biased in return. 

Mr Azopardi criticised the language used by the Chief Minister in the motion debate, saying references to “transparent bias” and similar phrases represented “a complete disservice to someone who has dedicated their career to public service” and who the Government itself had praised just weeks before the report was published. 

The former Principal Auditor “should be praised, not censured”. 

He also rejected Government claims that delays in the reports were caused by the auditor, pointing instead to the late delivery of approved accounts. 

The Leader of the Opposition defended too the former auditor’s right to raise questions about conflicts of interest, contracts, payments and tendering processes, saying such matters fell squarely within the role of ensuring value for money and of assessing whether financial administration had been “properly carried out”.  

He said raising potential conflicts was “legitimate comment” and stressed that the auditor was the person constitutionally entrusted with such scrutiny. 

Mr Azopardi questioned the Government’s explanations on issues highlighted in the report, including the handling of a lump-sum payment to a former GSLP executive member, and said the Government should publish the contractual basis of the payment in full.  

When the former Principal Auditor raised questions of potential conflicts of interest, “he's just doing his job [and] there’s nothing wrong with that,” Parliament heard. 

“Whether there is cronyism or patronage, if things are raised, it is the Principal Auditor’s right to raise the issue of the process of award of contracts for jobs or anything that can affect financial payments.” 

“Because that's directly relevant to his audits as to the administration of that policy, as to whether the money has been properly spent, and that is what he is statutorily supposed to do.” 

Mr Azopardi noted too questions raised in the report about Government-owned companies and said the former auditor was entitled to suggest that such companies should be audited by the Gibraltar Audit Office. 

He contrasted this with arrangements in the UK, where the Auditor General reviews hundreds of public sector accounts, including companies and arms-length bodies. 

He highlighted a £50.5 million transaction identified in the 2018/19 but said fundamental questions remained as to who and what it was for. 

“Where is that money?” he asked, adding that the public deserved clarity on where it had been invested. 

Turning to the Government’s amendment to the motion, Mr Azopardi said it amounted to an attempt to “usurp the functions of the auditor” by producing a counter-report, even though the Constitution gave the auditor exclusive responsibility for auditing and reporting on the public accounts of Gibraltar. 

 The Government could not replace parts of the report with its own version, he said, adding: “They can't mark their own homework.” 

“This is an exercise in eliminating troublemakers,” he told Parliament. 

Mr Azopardi said the intention behind the amendment, in particular the call to produce a counter-report, struck at the heart of constitutional protections designed to prevent an administration from rewriting scrutiny to suit itself. 

That approach risked setting a precedent that could impact other independent officers or institutions, he said, warning it raised questions about “what next and who next?” in terms of future constitutional conflict.  

The move risked undermining the independence of those exercising scrutiny over executive power and displayed “a deep misunderstanding” of accountability mechanisms and the purpose of the Constitution, Parliament was told. 

The Principal Auditor “should be allowed to say whatever he wants” in his reports, Mr Azopardi said, noting that this had been the Government’s own position when the reports were first commissioned. 

Mr Azopardi said the debate formed part of a wider concern about the Government’s use of parliamentary time and the length of the proceedings, and came against the “simmering backdrop” of other controversial issues including the McGrail Inquiry. 

The motion, he told Parliament, was “nothing short of a scandalous abuse by a desperate GSLP Government now fighting for its political survival”.  

“It goes well beyond an attempt to rewrite the narrative in the auditor’s report,” he said.  

“It's the use of state power to squash criticism and silence individuals so that they can get on with the unquestioned use of power and taxpayer money.” 

“It's an unconstitutional abuse of power by the Government and a muscling down on the former Principal Auditor.” 

“Worse still, it's a chilling message to everyone that dissent will not be tolerated by this GSLP Government.” 

“Independent constitutional officers called upon to audit and supervise the Government should be respected.” 

“This has serious consequences for democracy, basic freedoms and our institutions.” 

“This is a politically bankrupt administration that has totally lost its way and lost all respect for constitutional checks and balances.” 

“And for those reasons, they now need to go.” 

Mr Azopardi said the GSD would not support the motion or the amendments tabled by the Government. 

The debate is set to continue when Parliament reconvenes on November 20 at 11am.