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I will start with a question for clarification, just to get it on the record. In your view, which minister took the final decision to proceed with the contract?

Which minister signed the contract?

If I advise you not to do something in pretty strong terms and you then proceed to do it, I am either being ignored or overruled, am I not?

Okay. We have clearly touched on who took the decision—although I still have real concerns about that—but we do not understand why. When are we going to get to the why, and what changed materially to allow CMAL to set aside all its very significant concerns—so much so that it wanted to reopen the procurement process? Where is the documentary evidence that the Auditor General requested to say why the final decision was taken? Significant concerns were raised in September 2015, but we do not know what changed between September and October. Surely, with all the research that you must have done for coming before us today, you must have a greater understanding of what changed.

Nonetheless, you would accept the principle that when you have discussions with ministers, they can be minuted, but there can also be water cooler moments where discussions are had. Are you certain that everything that needed to be recorded around that time, principally during those critical 24 hours in October, was recorded?

You are saying that the Auditor General got it wrong.

You can be certain about that, but you are not certain about what those discussions were, because you were not there.

He took the final decision.

Okay. No minister signed the contract. CMAL had significant concerns, and it raised them with ministers, then it signed the contract. Was CMAL overruled, or were its views ignored?

The Auditor General does not think that that paper trail is sufficient.