The Malta Community Chest Fund, which this year organised the annual charity marathon L-Istrina, has so far failed to publish the list of organisations benefitting from the €2.3 million collected on Boxing Day.

Each year, the list of chosen beneficiaries is publicised beforehand so people could know who the money is going to, in the proportion that they would be receiving. But this year the list never featured in any of the press releases about the event and nor on the websites of L-Istrina or the MCCF.

Distributing the proceeds of last year's L-Istrina to 16 organisations in late October, President George Abela said that the MCCF received 48 applications in 2009 and 18 beneficiaries had been chosen.

However, neither the chosen organisations, nor the committee members have yet been made public.

The only time some of the organisations were mentioned was during the L-Istrina programme itself, when some volunteers of a few of the organisations were interviewed in video clips broadcast.

The Times has repeatedly asked the MCCF for a list of this year's beneficiaries after the Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations, Kenneth Wain and the chairman of the Council of the Voluntary Sector, Robert Farrugia both said they had not been informed of the list of beneficiaries.

The only reply that was forthcoming from the President's Office was that it had "nothing to add" to the information issued when the story first broke that L-Istrina required ministerial intervention for it to be held legally, since the MCCF had not registered as a voluntary organisation under the 2007 Voluntary Organisations Act.

Although enrolment is not compulsory, it qualifies organisations to receive state funds and benefits, such as airtime on PBS, as L-Istrina received.

In a statement issued through the Department of Information, the President's Office said it was not legally bound to enrol and that the beneficiaries had been selected.

"These beneficiaries have not only been identified but have been duly informed by the Malta Community Chest Fund board that they were going to be this year's beneficiaries of L-Istrina."

"... it seems quite convenient to try to make people forget the features repeatedly carried out during this year's edition of L-Istrina of who these organisation beneficiaries were going to be," the statement said, without actually mentioning the organisations.

However, several requests later, the list has still not been released and no public explanation given.