Updated 1.52 pm with Repubblika's statement below.

A former driver and canvasser for junior minister Andy Ellul has called for a magisterial inquiry into the social benefits racket, saying he is willing to tell all about the “criminal organisation” linked to the scam if given whistleblower protection.

In a judicial protest filed in court on Thursday, Roger Agius claimed that he had been ignored by the Whistleblower Officer within the Prime Minister’s Office when he twice wrote offering to spill the beans on the racket, including the people behind it, the modus operandi as well as details on other wrongdoings.

The protest was filed against the Prime Minister, the Whistleblower Officer at OPM, the State Advocate, the Attorney General and the Police Commissioner.

Agius explained how he had written to the Office of the Prime Minister in November and again in December demanding whistleblower protection because he wanted to “expose corrupt and criminal acts within the public administration”. However, he was ignored and his detailed emails were not even acknowledged.

Agius is set to face numerous charges, including money laundering, for his alleged role in the racket

Doctor and ex-Labour MP Silvio Grixti, who signed off on fraudulent medical certificates, is next week expected to be charged with forming part of a criminal organisation, fraud and money laundering.

Evidence indicates Grixti provided false medical documents to help people, often hailing from Labour strongholds, to receive social benefits averaging €450 monthly for severe disabilities they did not suffer from.

Agius was a former canvasser and driver for Grixti before being roped in to help Ellul for the March 2022 election after Grixti was arrested and forced to resign as a Labour MP in December 2021.

Prime Minister Robert Abela co-opted Ellul to parliament to fill Grixti’s seat, and Ellul then went on to successfully contest the doctor’s Żejtun district in the 2022 election. Agius was subsequently given a position-of-trust job within Ellul’s secretariat.

Ellul said last year that he was not informed of any alleged abuse by Agius when he was hired. He said Agius resigned as his driver in early 2023.

Roger Agius (left) with Silvio Grixti.

In his judicial protest, Agius said he had asked for whistleblower protection to expose the modus operandi and the people behind “a high-level criminal organisation operating within the highest echelons of the executive arm of Government” which had the sole aim “to defraud the public coffers of tens of millions of euro, acting with utmost impunity with the help, assistance, encouragement and complicity of a government minister, a parliamentary secretary and several public officers with the aim of the ruling party garnering more votes.”

Agius said that under the protection of the Whistleblower Act, he was willing to “disclose not only the ruthless nature of the criminal conspiracy operating from within the Ministry of Social Policy after 2019, but also reveal the corrupt practices which took place for vote buying.”

Apart from his suspected role in introducing people into the benefits racket, Agius is also suspected to have falsely claimed to suffer from a severe disability, which should have seen him surrender his driver’s licence.

In his letter sent to OPM by his legal consultants, Agius said he was in a position to show how the system worked in the case of these fraudulent applications, the way it was done, the bribery between those involved, which in certain cases amounted to hundreds of euros per person, and how a senior government official and member of the state executive directed him not to report to work and focus exclusively on constituency work in connection with the Labour Party.

The same legal advisers had informed the Whistleblower Officer within the Office of the Prime Minister that Agius was ready to testify all this under oath before an inquiring magistrate. Agius said he also informed the police Financial Crimes Investigation Department (FCID) on his willingness to confirm his version under oath.

Racket within the police force

During an interrogation held in the FCID building last month, Agius said he had given the police information about another racket that involved members of the police force and abuse of sickness benefits where the 'sick' would report for work every Sunday but then take sick leave from Monday to Saturday.

No one from the police has spoken to him about this abuse so far, despite his promise to furnish more details.

Agius also expressed concern that someone from within the top echelons of the police had informed a cabinet minister about his interrogation. He said he believed the source of the leak was not the inspector himself but someone else “much higher up in the hierarchy of the police force”.

Agius said that towards the end of last year, there were several attempts urging him to replace his lawyers with a lawyer engaged by the government. He insisted that he was not for sale.

He said both the police and the Prime Minister's Office “deliberately ignored” his request for whistleblower status to spill the beans on “one of the biggest scandals of corruption, maladministration, bribery and concealment of incriminating evidence…coordinated and planned and which eventually began to take place in and from within the highest corridors of power.”

He therefore called for the opening of a magisterial inquiry so he could testify all he knew about this and other rackets under oath and held the authorities responsible for damages he was suffering in default.

Lawyers Jason Azzopardi and Kris Busietta signed the protest.

Malta needs an effective whistleblower law - Repubblika

In a reaction to the judicial protest, rule of law group Repubblika said Malta needs a whistleblower law that works. It condemned the way how an application by a potential whistleblower was ignored by the responsible officials within the government.  

"The fight against corruption merits an effective law to protect whistleblowers. The current one does not," the group said.  

It insisted that the application of the whistleblower protection law must not rest on officials dependent on the government, because such officials protected ministers instead of witnesses.