A magisterial inquiry will be opened into an alleged racket at the government traffic enforcement authority LESA after a court upheld a request filed by former PN MP Jason Azzopardi.
Azzopardi said on Facebook that his request had been upheld by the court, and a magistrate will look into 13 alleged criminal offences as indicated by him.
The former PN MP had filed a request for a magisterial inquiry at the end of August, alleging that top LESA officials were involved in a scheme to fraudulently transfer penalty points incurred by Maltese drivers onto tourist rental cars.
The racket allowed the licence penalty points and associated fines meant to be handed to a Maltese offender to be transferred to a tourists’ driving licence instead, Azzopardi alleged.
The former PN MP said that the racket had been fine-tuned to work with the “precision of a Swiss watch,” and had meant that millions of euros were channelled into private pockets rather than to the State.
He said that one of the key beneficiaries of the scheme was the company WT Global, which operates Malta’s largest fleet of Y-Plate taxis.
Both LESA CEO Svetlick Flores and LESA customer care official Neville Camilleri – who Azzopardi named in his application – filed replies vehemently denying the allegations and telling the court that they were willing to fully cooperate in any investigations.
Camilleri is also a local councillor in Paola on the Labour Party’s ticket.
Azzopardi said on social media that pending any appeal, the Chief Justice will have drawn who the inquiring magistrate leading the inquiry will be, and appealed for anyone with concrete information about the alleged racket to speak to the magistrate.
“I myself will be passing on a lot of new information which has come to me in the last week, including evidence and testimonies. Do not give up. The truth will win. It will suffer, yes, but it will prevail,” he said.
Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri has said that he would not oppose a magisterial inquiry and that he had no knowledge of any such racket.
LESA said in a statement that it had noted the court’s decision and said that it is ready to collaborate fully in any investigation. The authority again vehemently denied the allegations and said it would welcome any scrutiny.
“LESA reiterates that it does not tolerate any form of abuse or actions which impinge on its integrity. So much is this the case that in recent years, the agency has invested and taken action in a number of case, including legally through requisition orders and against several people and companies in order to pick up payments which are owed,” LESA said.
This is the second inquiry that Azzopardi has initiated in as many months, after a court last month upheld his request for a magisterial inquiry into an alleged identity card fraud racket, which the former PN MP claims saw some 18,000 ID cards issued to foreigners.