The officials named in the Transport Malta whistleblower’s court application

The Transport Malta whistleblower, Aziz*, who exposed a suspected driving licence racket last year and whose court application this week alleged widespread voter fraud has named ministers, junior ministers and officials in his claims. They range from Transport Malta all the way to the Office of the Prime Minister.

In October last year, Aziz sent an anonymous letter to the Police Force’s Financial Crimes Investigation Department exposing a suspected Transport Malta racket, which involved the passing of names close to the Labour Party and its ministers in government for leniency during driving tests.

Aziz’s claims led to three Transport Malta Officials, Clint Mansueto, Philip Edrick Zammit and Raul Antonio Pace being charged in court with corruption.

Mansueto was a director at Transport Malta’s Land Transport Directorate and was suspended from his role last August. While being questioned by the police, Mansueto claimed he was pressured by a minister into helping certain individuals pass their driving test, adding that the individuals were allegedly working in the minister’s villa.

Last November, The Shift traced a number used to pass on messages to Mansueto straight back to former Transport Minister Ian Borg’s core team. On 5 July, the Times reported that a call for a replacement director for Mansueto’s role would be announced “within a month”. Transport Malta sources have confirmed to The Shift that no such call has been issued and that Mansueto’s role remains vacant.

Ian Borg, now foreign affairs minister, had insisted he was not the minister mentioned in court proceedings.

Philip Edrick Zammit, a former Żebbuġ Labour Party councillor, and Raul Antonio Pace were working under Mansueto and would allegedly take over indicating which of the candidates needed to be passed or helped along when their boss was not available. Zammit and Pace remain suspended from their roles.

In the letter sent to the police in November 2020 that triggered the initial investigation into the Transport Malta officials, Aziz claimed Zammit would “mark with a star those candidates which were to be passed from the test irregularly”.

In September, Rachel Debono, now a member of Prime Minister Robert Abela’s private secretariat, was named by Transport Malta sources as the one handling the names forwarded by different ministers to the Transport Malta officials involved in the scandal. Up until mid-2022, Debono was ex-Transport Malta chairman Joseph Bugeja’s personal assistant.

Aziz’s written testimony, submitted through his lawyers Jason Azzopardi and Kris Busietta to Magistrate Rachel Montebello, also claims that between February and September 2020, he spoke to former OPM Minister Carmelo Abela, Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship Alex Muscat, Transport Malta consultant and Ian Borg canvasser Jesmond Zammit, and ex-OPM Official and Rabat Mayor Sandro Craus.

In his court application, the whistleblower claimed to have shared details of the suspected racket at Transport Malta with Abela, Muscat, Zammit, and Craus – all of whom ridiculed him.

The whistleblower even claimed to have been threatened by Alex Muscat.

In a Facebook post on Friday, Muscat refuted Aziz’s testimony in which he also said his residency permit was revoked shortly after refusing to help Muscat with his 2022 electoral campaign. Muscat’s refutation echoed statements made by Identity Malta on Wednesday that claimed it was Aziz who failed to renew his temporary residence permit.

Craus was the head of customer care at the OPM who had given Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder middleman Melvin Theuma his phantom government job on OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri’s instructions.

In his court application, Aziz said he was willing to testify in further court proceedings, provided the court would allow him to do so through video conferencing given he did not feel safe doing so in person.

* Not his real name.