Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Minister Owen Bonnici are downplaying a serious crisis at Identity Malta by choosing to say nothing wrong is happening when there is clear evidence to the contrary, Nationalist Party deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami said today.

 “Instead of recognising the problem, and finding a solution and who is politically responsible, they defend this abuse,” he said, making reference to several stories published in The Malta Independent.

Last Sunday, The Malta Independent on Sunday published leaked documents that clearly indicate that 80 people out of a sample of 300 hold more than one I.D. card. This newsroom is also informed that following the publication of our first story, Identity Malta asked the Electoral Commission to delete cases of double entries flagged by the newsroom. Sources told The Malta Independent that these were deleted on 28 March 2017, two days after the revelations in TMIS

The Government has denied the claims.

Dr Fenech Adami made reference to the Prime Minister's statements to the press that the sample was an exercise carried out by The Malta Independent. This, he said, was Dr Muscat's first lie since the sample was in fact carried out by Identity Malta itself.

"When the Minister and Prime Minister say there is nothing wrong at Identity Malta, they are lying".

"It is not a situation where A says one thing and B says another. There simply cannot be an opinion on facts".

 

Dr Fenech Adami also told the media that the crisis was a particularly serious case since it concerns a fundamental element of democracy; that every person was entitled to one vote.

"If a general election was held tomorrow, there would be people who would be able to vote multiple times in different electoral districts," he said.

The deputy leader did acknowledge that it was a difficult process to find the exact amount of persons with multiple I.D cards since the ones that have been exposed held unique names.

"What about the Joe Borgs or the Mario Camilleris?"

The only way these cases could be found is through a physical exercise as the technology would not be able to find all the different permutations that may exist.

He went on to say that this was not the first case of abuse on the electoral registry, pointing towards the case where 90 people who had purchased citizenship appeared on the registry in spite regulation indicating that they could not.

He went on to say that the commission, Identity Malta, the Prime Minister and Minister Bonnici needed to answer questions instead of avoiding them.

On the role of the electoral commission in the crisis, Dr Fenech Adami said that the commission needed to be extremely vigilant, as the country did not want to return to the years of abuse of the past.

Herman Schiavone pointed to the corruption case concerning former PL treasurer Joe Sammut as further evidence of the crisis within Identity Malta, namely the "Algerian visas scandal", as well as corruption related to Libyan residence permits.

He also emphasized that the head of Identity Malta, Joe Vella Bonnici, was a former PL candidate who had hired a number of family members to various positions within the authority.

Matthew Mangion called on the electoral commission, who have remained silent so far, to respond and provide the relevant information to the public. He went on to say that it was their duty and obligation to do so.

Minister Bonnici reply

In a statement, Minister Owen Bonnici said  that Dr Fenech Adami is inventing a story that did not exist.

"The Ministry already dismissed altogether the unfounded news that appeared on the newspaper and has now been repeated verbatim by Beppe Fenech Adami."

"There is no crisis in the ID card system, and Identity Malta never conducted a sample of 300 ID cards."

This runs contrary to the leaked documents that The Malta Independent has in its possession.

"The ID card system today is strong and is better than any system that existed in the previous government, which allowed ID cards in Malta and Gozo to expire year after year," the statement said.

PN responds

In response, the PN said that the documented facts are that "there are people who have more than one ID card who are registered in the electoral register and have more than one documented vote."

"It is incredible how Minister Bonnici continues to lie when faced with documented facts."