Updated: Family park blighted by exorbitant cost variations

(Adds PN's statement) A visitors' centre and water culvert at the Marsascala family park cost half-a-million euros more than originally planned, according to a Government review. The example forms part of a wide-ranging exercise undertaken by the Management Efficiency Unit that found cost variations at the park to have shot up by 40 per cent. The report was critical of a number of direct orders that were issued in the weeks running up to the election as a result of expediency rather than urgency. "We are now not in a position to verify whether this reflects common practice or co-incidence and how widespread it was," the unit said. In more scathing language the MEU said it did not have definitive proof as to whether this was due to "negligence, malpractice or more serious motives". "If this was the fruit of deliberate practice it is likely that most traces would have even been removed at the time," the report noted, adding a full internal audit at this stage may be impractical. Environment Minister Leo Brincat, who released the report this afternoon, however was non-committal as to whether he will ask the police to investigate the matter. "I will have to seek advice on the matter.