A leading business lobby fears that the government’s continued silence about an alleged ID card racket “raises suspicions about the severity of the scandal”.
The Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise, and Industry said it was “deeply concerned” by the allegations, which it said would further erode Malta’s standing as a credible jurisdiction if true.
It also expressed alarm at the way in which the lines between the government, public sector and political party in power were being blurred, saying the lack of transparency and frequent turnover of public entity CEOs and chairs was undermining public trust.
In a statement on Saturday, the lobby group said that the government had consistently ignored various good governance recommendations made by the Chamber over the years in two separate reports. It demanded immediate action to restore good governance. Doing nothing “could be devastating for Malta's international reputation, business environment and public confidence,” it said.
“Without urgent reforms, the nation risks further damage to its reputation and undermining the foundations of its success.”
The Chamber’s statement comes on the back of allegations of widespread identity fraud, made by lawyer and former Nationalist Party MP Jason Azzopardi.
Azzopardi has alleged that the fraud was facilitated by top officials at state ID entity Identita and saw as many as 18,000 fraudulent documents issued. He has presented a 59-page court application to substantiate his claims. In it, he alleged officials were bribed and invited to cocaine-fuelled parties to issue false, fast-tracked documents for foreign workers.
The Malta Chamber said that ethical businesses were the ones to suffer in such cases, as they sought to obtain legitimate paperwork for their workers and ended up facing higher commercial risk as a result of suspicions about falsified documents.
The lobby group’s warnings also follow a tumultuous 10 days for the governing Labour Party, during which several key figures resigned, were reintegrated or were shifted from one role to another.
Randolph Debattista, who until last week served as Labour CEO, is to move to Geneva to serve as Malta’s ambassador to UN institutions there; his position within the Labour Party will be filled by Leonid McKay, who exits his role as Jobsplus CEO just months into the job.
Malta Enterprise executive chairman Kurt Farrugia, who formerly served as Labour’s head of communications, is now the top official at Transport Malta, filling a post vacated by Mark Mallia, who shifted from the transport regulator to become Robert Abela’s head of secretariat.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party on Friday voted to amend its statute to allow MPs and MEPs to serve as deputy leader for party affairs – a role vacated by Daniel Micallef, who quit shortly after the MEP and local council elections.