■ Reference is made to the report ‘No need to change way medical visas are issued’ (August 25).

The article is nothing but a misquoted representation of facts.

First and foremost, the headline in quotation marks is a complete invention of the newspaper and does not reflect any part of the reply sent by the Ministry for Justice, Culture and Local Government as requested by the Times of Malta.

In its reply about current allegations being levelled, including anonymous ones, the ministry never stated that there was “no need to change the way medical visas are issued”, as wrongly reported by the Times of Malta.

In fact, the ministry’s answer was precisely the opposite: that Identity Malta “audits its systems regularly as a normal procedure”.

Identity Malta still carries the necessary audits on its system and has always fine-tuned processes where necessary.

The ministry fails to understand how the Times of Malta came to the conclusion that “auditing the system regularly” means “no need to change anything”.

In fact, at the time in question, Identity Malta was not responsible for the issuance of medical visas as the Central Visa Unit only became part of its remit on January 22, 2016.

This, by no stretch of the imagination, means that investigations into allegations should not be held.

On the contrary, the police have publicly stated that, following their investigations upon a request of the Health permanent secretary himself, no wrongdoing or criminal behaviour has been found and, hence, at this point, the allegations cannot be translated into any court arraignment. Identity Malta will always cooperate in any investigation as necessary and without exception.

Quite frankly, it is useless raising questions and receiving answers only to then fail to give a true picture of the reply provided.

The result of such reporting is simply that of misleading the public.