Government and Labour Party officials are systematically using public funds to buy votes, NGO Repubblika said Sunday.

The group was referring to a story published in the Sunday Times that a former Labour MP, Silvio Grixti, has been implicated in a years-long racket to help “hundreds” of people to fraudulently receive monthly disability benefits they are not entitled to.

The story reports that Grixti provided false medical documents to help people, many of whom hailing from Labour strongholds like Zabbar, Zejtun and Paola, to receive the benefits for disabilities they do not suffer from. The payments average €450 from the social security department.

Some of the people introduced into the racket in 2019 and 2020 have claimed to police investigators that they were referred to Grixti by a Labour minister, a now deceased PL MP, ministers’ aides, and even customer care officials from the Prime Minister’s office, the report says.

Over the past weeks and months police have been charging dozens of claimants who benefitted from the racket.  The majority of those arraigned in court have admitted to the charges and agreed to return their ill-gotten gains, thus getting off with a suspended sentence for defrauding the government.

Grixti has yet to be charged for his suspected key role in facilitating the racket. He declined to comment when contacted via his lawyers Franco Debono and Arthur Azzopardi.

Grixti resigned from parliament in December 2021, shortly after being detained and questioned by police in connection with the alleged racket.

In a statement Sunday, Repubblika said the story exposed how corruption has infiltrated from top to bottom in the way the country operates.

It is clear that PL and government officials use public funds to buy votes, a double offence: the stealing of public money and using it to buy votes.

It said a Labour MP was at the centre of the systematic scheme, and he had resigned when investigations started two years ago. Yet, two years down the line, the PL and the government hid this. When you hide corruption, you are sustaining it, not fighting against it, Repubblika said.

It added that for many years hundreds of people received benefits they were not entitled for. This means that systems to control abuse had failed and for this it is the administration that is responsible.

This scheme was also politically discriminatory in favour of Labour supporters, who were receiving money that was supposedly for people who really deserve assistance, irrespective of their political allegiance.

This is another episode of vote manipulation on a grand scale that continue to throw suspicion on whether elections in Malta can be considered free and just, Repubblika said.

The police are doing their duty when arraigning the people involved, but it is false justice to punish people who benefited from the scheme but not taking action against whoever used political power to sustain it.

Repubblika said the country needs a specialised agency to fight corruption. We also need a national effort to mobilise people in the fight against corruption. We also need political parties who fight corruption, not facilitate it; parties who expose corruption, not hide it.

‘Abela must take steps against those complicit’ – PN

The PN meanwhile said that Robert Abela must take steps against persons in Castile who were allegedly involved in the fraud racket.

“What was revealed by the Times of Malta today continues to confirm how Robert Abela’s government is a government riddled with one scandal after another with continuous theft from the mouths of the people,” the PN said in a statement.

Apart from Grixti and several other Castille employees, the PN noted how even current Minister Owen Bonnici is mentioned in the report.  Bonnici denied any wrongdoing when contacted by the Times of Malta as part of their story.

“The reference to Owen Bonnici and other persons in the Office of the Prime Minister continues to cast an ugly shadow that indicates that there are people who are heavily involved in the leadership of our country involved in this racket: people who were part of this theft,” the party said.

The party continued that “this racket of false medical documents” helped to steal from people, who generally come from districts considered to be Labour strongholds in order to receive a payment of around €450 per month in social benefits.

 “Robert Abela cannot drag his feet here either, also in light of a direct reference to his office,” the PN said, saying that the Prime Minister must take action and all the necessary steps so that justice is done.

The Opposition called for an investigation be carried out immediately to uncover the whole truth about the involvement of people from Castile.