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Karl Schembri
A year ago, Transport Authority driving examiners Roderick Galea and Jason Buttigieg were on the prosecution’s side against a woman accused with attempting to bribe one of their colleagues to get a licence to drive a minibus.
Josephine Cassar stood accused back then that she had offered an undisclosed sum of money to driving examiner Ian Pace after he informed her that she had failed her second test.
The irony of the story today stares the three examiners in the face as two of them already stand officially charged in court in connection with the cash-for-licences scandal, and the rest of the authority’s examiners but one have been on forced leave for the last month.
Things have turned round full circle, with even the most subtle of details resurfacing a year since the case against Cassar.
Cassar’s instructor last year was Swallow Motoring School – now also implicated in the bribery scandal with charges filed against the owner of Swallow Garage.
And the police inspector prosecuting against Cassar was Angelo Gafà, who has since then widened the net of his investigations to put the very same authority officials under the spotlight and has now moved forward the charges that will put the same Galea and Buttigieg in the dock.
For over nine months, Inspector Gafà and his team at the fraud squad have been following the tracks of the authority’s examiners and driving instructors, long before the authority received an official complaint on 16 May this year.
Cassar’s examiner, Ian Pace, had recounted when cross examined by Inspector Gafà how she had offered him a sum of money in February 2005.
“Can’t we arrange something?” he said she told him after telling her she had failed – a charge denied by Cassar, who was however found guilty by Magistrate Antonio Vella.
Buttigieg had corroborated Pace’s evidence by telling the court how he had overheard Cassar attempting to bribe Pace for a licence, while Roderick Galea had also testified that he had seen Cassar asking Pace if she could arrange some sort of deal although under cross examination he had admitted he had not actually seen Cassar taking her test.
The director of the Licensing Department, Major Mark Sammut Tagliaferro, who asked not to be reappointed upon the termination of his contract last week, had also testified that apart from Cassar’s case, he was not aware of any bribery attempts, explaining that since May 2004 a new system for driving tests had been set up and this was making it harder for people to pass.
Now that same system is up for review, as an inquiry board set up by Transport Minister Jesmond Mugliett is looking into the specific procedures adopted by the Driving Examinations and Technical Administration Unit.
Despite the seriousness of the case which would have had Cassar trying to bribe a public official, Cassar was only reprimanded by the court in the guilty sentence, liberating her on condition she would not commit another crime within two years.
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
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