A group of NGOs have demanded a public inquiry into the benefits fraud scandal amid suspicions of a cover-up.
The scandal was revealed by Times of Malta last year, when it was reported that former MP Silvio Grixti was implicated as being at the centre of a scam which saw hundreds of people being granted benefits for severe disabilities they did not suffer from. Grixti was subsequently arraigned, along with a number of other people.
Repubblika president Vicki Ann Cremona pointed told a press conference on Thursday that the government had refused to grant whistleblower status to one of the accused, Roger Agius, a former driver of parliamentary secretary Andy Ellul.
Agius had told an RTK Radio interviewer that ministers and senior government officials were involved in the scam and the police had even leaked information he had given them to the ministers he had mentioned. He had also claimed that the Office of the Prime Minister offered not to have him charged in court if he dropped his lawyer, Jason Azzopardi.
Cremona also pointed out that the prime minister had known about the scandal before it became public. Robert Abela knew Grixti was being investigated and was on police bail. Yet, he retained him as a consultant in his office, a consultant at the health ministry and a member of the medical board of the Lands Authority.
She said that while money had changed hands, the central motivation behind the scheme was electoral fraud, where taxpayers' money was used to draw votes to the Labour Party.
This was a very serious matter, not just because public officials and the police were aware of the scheme but also because they tried to cover it up.
Cremona handed a letter addressed to the prime minister at the Auberge de Castille, calling for a public inquiry. She insisted that the Maltese people had a right to clean administration and to know the whole truth. The prime minister must safeguard democracy and defend the interests of the Maltese people, irrespective of who had failed and betrayed the trust he was given.
In the letter, the NGOs said that they hoped they wouldn’t find the same resistance for the holding of an inquiry as they did when they requested public inquiries in the cases of Daphne Caruana Galizia and Jean-Paul Sofia.
The letter was signed by Repubblika, Adidtus, The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, Moviment Graffitti, Kopin, KSU, Manueldelia.com, Occupy Justice and UĦM Voice of the Workers.