No need to enrol as NGO

The Malta Community Chest Fund is not prepared to enrol as a voluntary organisation "just to satisfy the whim of whoever has a different opinion", an official reply sent to The Times says.

The reply, under the Press Act, was sent by the Department of Information late on Thursday night in reaction to an article that appeared on The Times the same day entitled President's Charity 'Gets Preferential Treatment'.

The item reported that the Community Chest Fund had not yet enrolled with the Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations despite warnings to do so.

The MCCF had informed the commissioner it had legal advice from the Attorney General saying it did not have to enrol once it was partly state-run but NGO Commissioner Kenneth Wain disagreed, preferring to stick to the legal advice he had which ran contrary to that of the Attorney General.

Prof. Wain insisted there was no point in having a law that was not followed, referring to the 2007 law regulating the voluntary sector.

Prof. Wain said he had informed the MCCF "a very long time ago about this problem". He insisted the same thing must not happen again.