Court Hears TM Official Pressed Over Fines

A Transport Malta official facing corruption charges is accused of leaning on a subordinate to cancel fines for selected people, then making his working life miserable when he stopped cooperating. Times of Malta reported the testimony from court, where Kenneth Spiteri, 40, from Għaxaq, is pleading not guilty to charges including trading in influence, offering and receiving bribes, and failing to prevent offences he was duty-bound to stop.

The detail that matters is not only the alleged favour-trading. It is what it says about enforcement when the person above you can allegedly decide that some tickets count and others do not. A blue badge space, an unlicensed vessel, a contravention at sea: these are ordinary rules of daily order until someone inside the system starts treating them as optional for friends, relatives or the well-connected.

Inspector Andy Rotin from the FCID told the court that the investigation began after a Facebook post by Arnold Cassola and reporting by The Shift raised allegations of corruption within Transport Malta, including claims tied to Spiteri. Police then obtained further information through the authority’s then CEO Jonathan Borg, with material passed on from employee Massimo Galea.

Rotin said Galea told police that Spiteri, his superior at the time, regularly asked him to cancel fines and warned him there would be consequences if he refused. Among the examples described in court was a vehicle parked in a blue badge bay at Ġnejna Bay which Galea said Spiteri told him not to fine because it belonged to the brother of another Transport Malta official. Another allegation concerned boat owners in Marsaxlokk who were not to be fined despite breaches.

Galea later gave evidence himself. He said he had worked in Transport Malta’s Marine Enforcement unit, with Spiteri above him as an assistant manager. He told the court that he and colleague Marvin Formosa would carry out inspections on vessels and then receive calls from Spiteri about specific boats or inspections. In two instances he recalled clearly, he said Spiteri stopped them from issuing fines to five boat owners in one case and seven in another. Galea claimed the boats belonged to people in Marsaxlokk who were cousins or friends of Spiteri.

He also described an inspection of a fishing boat carrying tourists, where the owner allegedly refused to produce papers showing he was licensed and instead told Galea he could collect them from “Spiteri’s Labour Party club”. Galea said Spiteri later told him to let the vessel continue operating and inspect it later.

The allegation grows uglier in the way Galea says resistance was handled. He told the court that after he decided he would no longer give in, his roster was changed, leave was denied on the eve of his daughter’s wedding, and he was at one stage left without pay. He also claimed he was stationed on Comino for a month while his wife was in hospital undergoing cancer treatment.

That is where this stops being only a corruption case in the abstract. If the testimony is accepted, the message inside the authority was plain enough: enforce the rules selectively, or expect the system above you to close ranks.

During cross-examination, the defence suggested Galea’s allegations were tied to his wish to secure Spiteri’s position. Galea confirmed he had applied for a promotion in competition with Sandro Parnis and Spiteri, and that the role eventually went to Parnis. Spiteri denied the claims when interrogated under arrest, according to the inspector’s testimony.

Spiteri remains employed with Transport Malta.