The rot at Identity Malta almost certainly did not begin to set in as soon as the Labour Party was elected to power in 2013. Nor did the rot’s speed necessarily increase at breakneck speed because the Labour Party was swept to power.
The government has made it a point to state that the residency permits scandal at Identity Malta dates back ‘at least five years’ – effectively spanning this and the last legislature. If this is indeed the case, and we have no reason to doubt the government’s statement, the scandal has been steadily growing year by year from one legislature to the next, and as such both parties are guilty of these shady operations being undertaken on their watch.
The fact of the matter is, however, that the number of residency permits granted in 2013 and 2014 grew by leaps and bounds. According to data published by the media this week, the total number of residency permits more than doubled between 2012 and 2014 and permits for Libyan nationals more than quadrupled, while permits for Filipinos, Russians, Serbians and Ukrainians all more or less doubled.
There could be a number of reasons for the steep increase in residency permits granted to third country nationals over those years: instability in the countries from where those seeking Maltese residency have come; or perhaps Malta’s appeal as a nation to call home skyrocketed under the new 2013 government.
Whatever the case, foreign nationals have been illegally getting Maltese residency permits under both parties’ watches, for a price, and both will eventually have to take some form of accountability for the situation.
They know they are both guilty to some degree. Perhaps impending court cases will shed more light on exactly what happened and when, but there is little doubt that people of both political stripes have been involved in the racket.
As such, the Labour and Nationalist parties cannot continue to obfuscate the issue by simply blaming each other, which appears to be the only course of action that Maltese politicians know.
The government may, at the end of the day, deserve credit for having tackled a longstanding situation, a situation that the previous administration was either oblivious to or simply swept under the carpet.
It was reported this week that Identity Malta’s offices were raided by the police earlier this week and that arrests were made. This was no new action and this newspaper has good reason to believe that the police have been on the case since the allegations on Joe Sammut’s residency permits for cash scam was exposed in open court.
In fact, this newspaper had reported some six weeks ago that the police had raided Identity Malta’s offices at Evans Building and police officers had confiscated files related to Libyans and Filipinos and brought employees in for questioning.
But is such action being taken now only after push came to shove when the scam was revealed in court, after no small amount of media reportage on the issue, or because the government has uncovered a long-festering problem?
These answers too will come in due course but in the meantime what is important, direly so, is that action is taken on the residency scam. This is an issue of national security, a simple fact that people seem to be forgetting as the parties continue to trade fire.
This is also an issue of trust in state institutions and in the good governance of the country, which appears to be quickly eroding. And it is essential that that trust begins to be restored as quickly as possible.
As such, and for starters, the Opposition’s call for the suspension of the head of Identity Malta should be heeded. This is not an admission of guilt, it is simple good governance and a matter of giving the nation the message it deserves: that not even a whiff of corruption will be tolerated by the state.
Whether the residency permit scam was conceived under his watch or not is quite irrelevant. What is relevant is that action is taken to restore that trust which is being chipped away week after week.
It is not enough for the government to sit back and wait for the results of police investigations; an independent inquiry must also be established to look into the matter and the claims of wide-ranging institutionalised corruption.
If this is truly a situation that spans both parties and legislatures, the government should put its money where its mouth is and provide the accountability it had promised the nation from day one of the last election campaign. This government said it would do things differently; here is one more small chance to prove it.