No ethics breach in PM’s defence of driving licence scandal

Robert Abela did not breach any ethics rules by defending ministers and officials implicated in a driving licence scandal.

Standards Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi was asked to investigate the prime minister over comments given to the media in the wake of the scandal involving foreign minister Ian Borg and a slew of other officials.

Momentum founder Arnold Cassola filed a complaint in October 2023 over Abela’s defence of a “corrupt system” which saw ministers and Labour Party insiders request special treatment for preferred candidates sitting for their driving tests.

Times of Malta revealed how a Transport Malta racket to help candidates obtain a driving licence leads straight to Borg, who was transport minister at the time.

WhatsApp chats obtained by Times of Malta showed how Borg, his canvasser Jesmond Zammit, and his ministry personnel regularly piled pressure on Transport Malta’s director of licensing Clint Mansueto to "help" candidates at different stages of the licensing process.

Mansueto and two low-level Transport Malta clerks, Philip Edrick Zammit and Raul Antonio Pace, face charges of corruption and trading in influence in connection with the racket. They deny the charges.

The Standards Commissioner said that while Abela’s comments could be interpreted as a defence of clientelism, the prime minister could not be found guilty of an ethics breach on the basis of an opinion he had expressed.

The report highlighted that for an ethics violation to be substantiated, stronger evidence of wrongdoing was required.

Cassola not abusing law, Commissioner tells PM

In his ruling, the Commissioner dismissed claims by the prime minister that Cassola’s frequent ethics complaints were an abuse of the law.

Azzopardi noted that excerpts from the press conference clearly indicated the Prime Minister did not endorse the alleged fraudulent activities currently under criminal investigation. However, he raised concerns about the nature of "legitimate" assistance a ministry’s customer care department could provide to driving test applicants. If such assistance involved jumping the queue, he argued, it would still be irregular, even if it did not directly influence the test itself.

However, the Commissioner acknowledged that Cassola raised valid concerns about the potential safety risks posed by a system that allows for preferential treatment in driving tests.

Second, the report recognised that Abela’s comments could be interpreted as condoning a flawed system, which could undermine public trust in fair and impartial governance.