MANAGEMENT of a powerful body responsible for creating a world-class agri-food research facility has been "unacceptably poor", Stormont's Public Accounts Committee said.
The Belfast-based Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) under-takes scientific testing and research and development work in agriculture, animal health and welfare, food, fisheries and forestry.
It received £250 million of taxpayers' money between 2006 and 2011. But a report by the Audit Office, published last year, found that it did not provide good value for money.
Stormont's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said yesterday it was "very disappointed" by how the body was managed.
In its own report, the PAC said the Department of Agriculture had not properly overseen the agri-food body.
Proper costing systems were not introduced in the institute until late 2012 but the department continued to give the body £40 million a year without knowing how efficient it was.
The PAC said it was "totally unacceptable" that the department had only recently begun to develop a proper AFBI estates strategy, even though more than £51m was spent on the body's estates between 2006 and 2011.
It also said the department's management of the AFBI's research and development was "unacceptably poor" and that many projects were "allowed to drift for far too long".
One potato breeding project had been ongoing since 1957 but had "failed to deliver any degree of market success to the industry".
The report found that the AFBI had lost £3.5 million by undercharging customers over the same five-year period.
PAC chairman, Sinn Fein MLA Michaela Boyle, said the committee was "alarmed at the extent of weaknesses and shortcomings of AFBI's financial and project management".
But she said the committee was pleased the AFBI had recently introduced new procedures to improve its management and efficiency.