The National Audit Office’s first report for this year, published last January, was themed ‘Is LESA suitably geared to perform its traffic enforcement function adequately?’
The auditor general concluded that if the concerns raised in the performance audit were to be duly addressed by the Local Enforcement Systems Agency, its image “will inevitably be enhanced and the provision of a higher quality and more comprehensive service can be secured”.
When a new chief executive officer was appointed at LESA in the final quarter of 2020 he had spoken of plans to carry out “the necessary reforms to make the agency one that better serves the needs of the community”.
However, none of the above seems to be happening. On the contrary, the indications are that LESA is failing in its duties, whether because of inertia, incompetence or collusion.
Hundreds of contraventions issued to politicians, their aides, business people and even former top LESA officials over the past five years have been deleted from the system, Times of Malta has reported. One particular vehicle, which, no doubt, must belong to or is used by someone who is or was very influential – or, perhaps, is close to somebody who carries a lot of weight – had 200 contraventions written off.
When the CEO, Svetlick Flores, was contacted, he did not deny this had happened. In fact, he said the suspect had no authorisation to do so. According to various sources privy to what has been going on, the person in question had no difficulty marking contraventions as having been “cancelled”, “withdrawn” or “not guilty”.
The CEO, however, seems to have decided that transferring the person to another department and instituting disciplinary proceedings against him would suffice.
Such ‘logic’ is unbecoming the top executive of a government agency that has the enforcement of traffic-related regulations among its main tasks.
Also, if the abuse was flagged by third parties, rather than by a system of checks and balances that should be in place in such an important entity, then the CEO has another grave failure to answer for.
Three main issues had been highlighted by the auditor general in his report: insufficient funding; inability to recruit the required complement of community officers and concerns on the quality of some of them; and, finally, inadequate operational planning.
Flores may well argue he has dedicated all his time and energy to addressing those three issues. That may or may not be the case but leaving a national agency so wide open to such abuse can never be justified for whatever reason.
For the sake of transparency and accountability, LESA should have made a public announcement no sooner had the abuse been brought to its attention. At the same time, it should have called in the police, suspended the person in question – especially since he is already facing other allegations of misconduct, including sexual harassment – and made sure all evidence was preserved.
The manner in which the whole affair has been managed, or, rather, mismanaged, smacks of LESA wanting to protect the culprit and those who benefitted from his wrongdoing rather than the community it is meant to serve.
Practically every motorist in the country has stories of wardens emerging from the shadows, sometimes literally, to fine them. Others are unable to renew their vehicle licence because of unpaid fines. Their disgust at this sordid affair is fully justified.
For its own reasons, LESA is unwilling to explain. Flores has now gone on TVM seeking to downplay the abuse by saying issued tickets cannot be cancelled.
Well, something is very wrong then. This is a matter for the police.