“Unless the vehicles come back splattered with blood, the candidates pass.” This was the shocking order Clint Mansueto, Transport Malta director, allegedly gave to Roderick Cavallo, a bus driving licences examiner.
Mansueto would allegedly select which candidates should get their licence, ordering his staff to pass them. Many of those “special candidates” were “the minister’s” (tal-ministru). One of them was “Francesco tal-ONE”. Another four had been working on “the minister’s villa”.
With each court hearing, more ghastly and revolting details emerge of the culture of fear that Mansueto allegedly created at Transport Malta (TM). Mansueto “ruled over his section with an iron fist, making the lives of those who refused to follow his orders a living hell”. TM officials testified that Mansueto threatened them that they “would have to answer to the minister” if his candidates failed their test. Mansueto would fly into a rage if any failed. One TM official recounted that “I was afraid of Clint. I didn’t feel comfortable ‒ everyone was on his side”.
When a group of examiners, disgusted with Mansueto, took a stand with the help of their union, they paid the price. Mansueto started “to take revenge”. As director, Mansueto changed work requirements “to deny them a promotion”. An interpreter, who subsequently fled, continued to obey Mansueto’s orders, fearing “losing his job”.
Clearly, Mansueto was given extraordinary power to dominate and intimidate his staff in order to satisfy “the minister”.
Yet, “the minister” remains a closely guarded secret. If Mansueto’s staff were afraid of him, everybody else, Mansueto included, are absolutely terrified of “the minister”. Like a Labour Lord Voldemort, the minister is “he who must not be named”. Mansueto knows who the minister is. He named the minister to the interpreter. The foreign interpreter named the minister to investigators but subsequently fled the country, probably driven by the sheer terror of what he had uncovered, oblivious of the power behind the racket.
Mansueto is scared too. He didn’t dare name the minister to investigators. He couldn’t even bring himself to name the political party involved. Mansueto received messages from people closely linked to a political party instructing him which candidates should pass. When asked in court which political party, Mansueto replied: “I can’t say.”
Mansueto is accused of bribery, unlawful exaction, trading in influence, forgery, fraudulent alteration of acts, making use of false documents and false declarations to a public authority and accounting offences. He risks a long jail term. He has every interest to cooperate with the court. Yet, rather than speaking openly, Mansueto withholds information. He is too terrified to reveal even what is already obvious: which political party his handlers were linked to. But he’s even more petrified of revealing the minister’s name.
Of course, the prosecutors don’t need Mansueto to reveal the minister’s identity. They know it. They traced a text sent to the minister complaining of difficulty faced by foreign candidates in finding an interpreter. And the minister replied. The prosecuting officer, Inspector Borg, is also caught in that culture of terror. Asked directly “which political party”, he too gave the stock answer ‒ “I can’t say”.
Who can blame him? When he was asked “who is the minister”, the magistrate intervened to prevent the minister being named. The magistrate rebuked the defence lawyer for having the temerity to ask the question. The magistrate warned him against “using the court as a political platform”, even as she used the court to protect the minister.
Transport Malta hasn’t recalled bus drivers given a licence fraudulently- Kevin Cassar
When even the court intervenes to protect “the minister”, it’s not surprising that the whistleblower fled, Mansueto trembles and Inspector Borg cowers in fear. The retribution expected from breaking that code of silence must be truly frightening.
What is clear is that a considerable number of people are driving cars and buses on a licence they should never have been given. The implications for road safety are terrifying. The responsible authority, TM, should have immediately called an independent audit to determine the scale of the problem and to mitigate the risks to the public, at least for bus driving licences, where the risks to public safety are significantly higher.
Has TM conducted any internal review or investigation into the matter? Has it attempted to determine who was given a licence when they didn’t have the necessary competence? Have they called in an external auditing firm to establish the scale of the damage? Has TM reviewed its internal processes, its bullying and harassment policy and its implementation, its oversight and security structures? Absolutely not.
TM hasn’t even bothered to issue a public apology for its abysmal failures to the nation. Nor has the minister responsible. TM hasn’t recalled bus drivers given a licence fraudulently. It hasn’t withdrawn their driving licences. It hasn’t even bothered finding out who they are. It hasn’t ordered any investigation, audit or review, let alone implemented any changes to prevent the same thing happening again in future.
TM hasn’t even attempted to determine how it could have possibly recruited somebody like Mansueto to be director. The police have done it for them. Mansueto’s superior at TM, David Gouder, sent Mansueto a screenshot circling the questions he should focus on before his own exam to become director. When Mansueto inevitably got his post, Gouder flagged candidates’ names to Mansueto to pass them.
TM isn’t going to scrutinise its recruitment processes. Its new CEO is former AFM commander Jeffrey Curmi, given four army promotions in a few weeks, deemed “outright illegal” by the ombudsman. Curmi was appointed TM CEO with no call for applications and no competitive process despite his complete lack of experience in the field. Transport Minister Aaron Farrugia thanked the previous CEO, Joseph Bugeja for overseeing the utter mess that was Transport Malta under his leadership.
This is the sick country Labour has created. Not only has Labour fostered an insidious malignant culture of corruption but it has also constructed a climate of terror to ensure that its iniquities remain concealed and its perpetrators sheltered.