Byron Camilleri’s silence is deafening

Identità is the government agency responsible for citizens’ identity management and the regulation of migration processes. 

In its ‘About’ page on its website, Identità says it ‘aims to achieve the highest level of service excellence without compromising security’. 

We are in no position to determine whether these aims have been achieved but the slowly unfolding scandal involving fake residential addresses supplied by foreigners certainly points to a big security weakness. 

Nationalist MP Albert Buttigieg published on social media several letters with his house address on them but addressed to people with Indian names who do not and have never resided in his property. The letters in this case are from a mobile phone company. 

Evidently, the person who had procured the services of the mobile phone company must have supplied them with a fake identity card that had Buttigieg’s house address. 

Buttigieg is not the only person to have received such mail from companies that would ordinarily require an identity document to enter into a contractual agreement with a prospective client. 

Buttigieg’s predicament appears to be the tail end of what lawyer Jason Azzopardi has been labelling as a massive scandal involving some 18,000 fake ID cards created with the help of Identità officials. If what Azzopardi is claiming is true, the country’s security has truly been compromised. 

Now, there is no love lost between Azzopardi and MaltaToday. The lawyer has a habit of making outlandish comments and creating mountains out of molehills. But it would be a grave mistake if the minister responsible for Identità – Byron Camilleri – simply ignores the claims, even more when other individuals are coming forward with letters received at home and addressed to people they do not know and who never resided in their property. 

At the very least, Camilleri has a duty to explain what is happening and what he plans to do about it. While calling for Camilleri’s resignation at this stage may be premature, his continued silence is deafening. 

His silence is even more problematic when one considers that a magistrate recently asked the police to investigate two Identità officials who were testifying in an immigration case against an Egyptian national and who gave conflicting versions under oath. 

It is a serious problem if foreigners are using fake ID cards to go about their business in Malta; and worse, if they are using legitimately issued ID cards, which however contain false information. The implications of the latter scenario are very serious because banks, financial institutions and companies entering into some form of contractual obligation with these people need to have the peace of mind that the persons who are in front of them are who the official documents claim they are. One would assume that Identità would have done its homework well before processing and issuing an ID card to a foreign individual. In many ways, it is the first form of due diligence that companies and institutions will be banking on. 

At first glance the issue flagged by Buttigieg does not seem to be an isolated case but a widespread practice – other individuals have since come forward reporting similar incidents. 

If it is part of an even wider criminal racket that has bought the silence of politicians on both sides of the House, police officers and other public officials, as alleged by Azzopardi, it is significantly worse. 

If Identità officials are or were at the heart of any wrongdoing, it becomes a serious problem of national security. A scandal of such proportions is a resignation matter. 

This is why a thorough police investigation is required to determine if the abuse is being perpetrated by Identità officials and if so, what the extent of the abuse is. If Identità is not involved but somebody else is producing fake ID cards, the culprits should be caught and prosecuted accordingly. If any public official was aware of this scandal but turned a blind eye they are equally guilty. 

Whatever the case may be, Camilleri cannot remain with his mouth shut. If there is a scandal of epic proportions as is being alleged, Malta’s national security is being compromised every passing day.