Politicians, businessmen and other top officials managed to avoid paying traffic fines for the last five years after a LESA employee continuously deleted them from the authority’s database.

According to a report in the Times of Malta, the official would delete fines for things such as overspeeding and illegal parking.

The report continues that one car had some 200 fines deleted from the system by the said official.

LESA CEO Svetlick Flores said that the employee was not authorised to do this, and that the authority had opened disciplinary proceedings against the worker, who has been transferred to another department.

In a statement on Monday, NGO Repubblika said that the story showed how laws in the country did not apply to everyone and that an investigation had to be launched and the people involved should be held accountable for their wrongdoing.