Massive racket in fake addresses/former police minister leads by example

The Times of Malta reports today that 50 non-Maltese citizens gave the same Windsor Terrace, Sliema flat as their official registered address when applying to Identity Malta for official documentation as residents.

They are 35 Libyans, five Ukrainians and 10 Slovak, British, French and Chinese citizens. They say they were charged between
€150 and €350 each for permission to use not the flat itself, but its address as their stated official residence. The report does not say whether the sum is charged on a monthly basis or whether it is a one-off.

The details emerged during a police investigation into forged documents used by one Libyan citizen, Abdarrhim Osman, 25, who has been charged.

Giving false information on official documents, or applications for official documents, is a crime. Yet Maltese people themselves do this routinely, registering themselves at addresses where they do not live, for a variety of reasons, including the most popular one of saving money on the Gozo ferry fare.

In this laissez-faire attitude, the former police minister, Manuel Mallia, leads by example. While it is obvious to all that he lives with his wife and children in their home in Valletta, he has given false information to the government in stating that he lives at his villa in Ta’ Cenc, Gozo, which is given as his official address on his identity card. Meanwhile, his wife’s identity card gives her address as their home in Valletta. And this when, as government minister for Home Affairs, he was responsible for identity cards and ensuring that they do not contain fraudulent or deceptive details.

I do not know whether it is against the law to charge people money to use your address fraudulently, as the (unnamed) owner of that flat in Windsor Terrace, Sliema, is doing – but if it is not, then the government should legislate immediately by means of a legal notice. This is exactly what legal notices are for, and not to abuse and hoodwink the public and slip things past us and the Opposition.

Former Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia leads by example in giving false information for his identity card, stating that he lives at Ta’ Cenc in Gozo when everyone knows that he lives with his family at the Valletta home which is his wife’s registered address.