Utter respect for the law

This is the full text of the reply sent by the Department of Information in terms of the Press Act:

"Reference is made to the article published by The Times on its front page (December 31), entitled President's Charity Gets Preferential Treatment, an article that was carried by The Times on its front page when the nation is still congratulating itself on the show of unity and solidarity expressed during L-Istrina and on the eve of the campaign for the Dar tal-Providenza administered by the Church.

"First of all, the gratuitous assertion that the Malta Community Chest Fund is getting preferential treatment is totally unfounded both in fact and in law. Your paper, for reasons of its own, chose as its heading this insinuation when it is a known fact that the MCCF, presided over by the President of Malta, does not indulge in any form of action that renders it above the law. The MCCF is scrupulous in its transparency and accountability when, as is well known, its accounts have always been publicly audited and its audited accounts published in leading newspapers annually. Therefore, one cannot but query the motivation, the prominence and the timing of the story that is totally unfounded in its allegations.

"This year's resoundingly successful L-Istrina was carried out with maximum transparency and legality. L-Istrina was held in full adherence to the provisions of the law, which applies for public collections namely, the Public Collections Act (Chapter 279). This goes to prove beyond any shadow of doubt the respect that the President and the Malta Community Chest Fund board have for the law. In fact, the Malta Community Chest Fund board applied for and was granted the necessary permit by the Minister for Justice and Home Affairs.

"The Malta Community Chest Fund board had also sought the legal advice from the Attorney General in order to ensure the proper observance of the law. In fact, the Attorney General had advised the private secretary to the then President of the Republic, way back in September 2008, that after having

'... scrutinised its statute of constitution and examined the relevant provisions of the Voluntary Organisations Act, I respectfully consider that an organisation, even though it performs public collections as in the case of the Malta Community Chest Fund, is not duty bound to enrol and register itself as a voluntary organisation as per the provision of the Voluntary Organisation Act'.

"Though one would have expected Kenneth Wain and the council chairman, Robert Farrugia, as government-appointed officials, to also respect the legal advice by the Attorney General, the Malta Community Chest Fund board on its part has strictly adhered to this advice given by the Attorney General more than a year ago and maintained since. The Malta Community Chest Fund board is not prepared to enrol as a voluntary organisation just to satisfy the whim of whoever has a different opinion.

"Another unfounded allegation is that the list of beneficiaries from this year's L-Istrina had not been identified with the consequence that people were being asked to donate money without knowing which organisations would benefit. This is again not true and it seems quite convenient to try to make people forget the features repeatedly carried out during this year's edition of L-Istrina of who these organisation beneficiaries were going to be. More so, these beneficiaries have not only been identified but have been duly informed by the Malta Community Chest Fund board that they were going to be this year's beneficiaries of L-Istrina.

"Finally, it is also pertinent to point out that the Malta Community Chest Fund board has included for the first time in its statute that a representative from the Council of Voluntary Organisations be represented ex-ufficio on its board and in spite that it has repeatedly invited the commissioner to nominate a representative this has unfortunately been to no avail."

Editorial note: Three points: The Times reported what the Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations and the chairman of the Council for the Voluntary Sector had to say about the matter, at the time they said it. 2) The Times did report that the MCCF told the commissioner it was not enrolling as an NGO because the Attorney General had advised it that it did not need to do so because it was partly state-run, once the President formed part of the state. 3) The Times sent questions about the matter to the MCCF two days before the item appeared and tried to obtain comments from the President's Office a day prior to publication but to no avail. The right of reply was e-mailed to the editor of The Times on Thursday at 9.29 p.m.