A Maltese man who was given more than double the usual time to complete a driving theory test at a Transport Malta official’s orders wrapped up the test well ahead of the deadline, a court heard on Wednesday.
The court heard how a certain “Emanuel Sammut” was among three candidates flagged by Philip Endrick Zammit as needing special translation assistance during a theory test.
Zammit is among three Transport Malta officials charged with running a driving test corruption racket at the transport authority.
A representative from the testing centre told a court on Wednesday that candidates usually got 45 minutes to complete the test. Sammut received a 100-minute deadline and the help of a translator.
Sheila Cutajar recalled that Sammut’s translator had predicted that he would not take long to finish the exam, and that is exactly what happened.
Cutajar told the court that she had initially tried to postpone Sammut’s 5pm test, as its 100-minute duration would mean it would end well after the centre closed at 6pm.
But the foreign translator had insisted on going ahead with the exam.
“I clearly recall that,” said the witness.
“He won’t take long to complete it [the exam],” the interpreter had insisted.
“And in fact he did not take long,” recalled Cutajar.
“This exam ended well before 6pm. Well before,” the witness said.
Cutajar told the court that Sammut was one of three candidates flagged by Zammit in an August 2020 email as needing a translator’s assistance.
It was normal procedure for Zammit to send out such names, copying in Clint Mansueto, the witness testified.
Mansueto, a director at Transport Malta, is also charged with the corruption racket. So too is TM official Raul Antonio Pace.
At least one unnamed government minister has also been mentioned as involved in the corruption scandal ever since the case started being heard in August.
Asked to supply details about three particular candidates and the number of times they sat for their theory tests, the witness read out figures related to one foreign and two Maltese candidates.
One of those was Marcus Galdes, whose name had cropped up in previous sittings.
He sat for his car theory test three times, in January, February and April 2018, registering success at the third attempt.
In May 2019, the same candidate also passed his Category C test at the third attempt.
He also passed his Category D test that year and the first part of the bus driving licence test in 2020, but failed the second part of that test few days later.
Forms were sent out by Transport Malta for interpreters to sign, indicating that they could not assist any particular candidate assigned to them among those listed for translation services, such as Arabic and Italian.
They received emails from Transport Malta every week, explained Rose Cassar, another witness from the testing centre.
An accounts officer from Transport Malta could not confirm whether the authority had paid for translation services in respect of three particular candidates, two foreigners and a Maltese national.
Mary Rose Pace explained that she did not have the relative information.
She was asked to check and return with the requested information at another sitting.
Details about practical tests undertaken by three candidates, including Galdes, were produced by Pierre Montebello, chief officer at TM’s Land Transport Directorate who also exhibited screenshots from the TM systems.
The case, presided over by Magistrate Rachel Montebello, continues in March.
Inspector Wayne Borg prosecuted, together with AG lawyer Abigail Caruana Vella. Lawyers Arthur Azzopardi and Jacob Magri assisted Mansueto.Lawyer Joseph Giglio assisted Pace. Lawyer Herman Mula assisted Zammit.