Opposition home affairs spokesman Michael Falzon yesterday challenged the Chief Electoral Commissioner, the Electoral Commission and the Police Commissioner to issue a public statement saying that the electoral register published last week was correct.
Speaking during the Budget debate, Dr Falzon referred to the issue of expired ID cards and said the current situation was highly abusive. There was no doubt, he said, that all the confusion was intended by the government to facilitate the abuse of the electoral process.
Was the Electoral Commission happy to publish a register it knew was not correct?
Starting with illegal immigration, Dr Falzon said only a few countries had come forward to take small numbers of refugees. The situation must not be allowed to be forgotten in EU circles. On the other hand Malta must take a clear and serious decision on whether it really wanted the eventual integration of the large number of illegal immigrants already on its shores. The issue would not go away simply by being ignored.
He said that since 2005 the government had done nothing about the serious shortage of staff in the civil prisons when the prison population numbers some 600 persons. Neither was there any sense of commitment towards the management structure, with almost everybody in an acting capacity for years.
The inquiry into the recent death of a prisoner was still pending, but the truth must emerge.
The prisons had gone months without the services of a psychiatrist. There was only one social worker assigned to the whole prison population, still with no decent office to meet individual prisoners after four years of promise.
The government was still hiding the 2008 report on the prevention of torture.
He said it was time to make a clear distinction between the probation and the corrective services. Besides the 600 prison inmates, there were 730 others on probation. Each case meant at least a family, and they were being helped by just 14 persons whose reports almost invariably influenced court sentencing. Each probation officer had between 60 and 80 cases to deal with.
Dr Falzon said he thought the courts could make greater use of the community service order system, which was something positive because it led to win-win situations.
Turning to the Department of Civil Protection, he said better liaison was needed with the army, police and media, not only in heavy weather situations but also in major accidents such as the one involving the Aldo Moro Road bridge in Marsa. What if that accident had been planned?
The average age of members of the corps was now over 40, when international standards pushed for 25-30 in view of the hard work involved. The older members could still contribute in training recruits.
Museum-type fire engines were crying out for new investment, and second-hand safety equipment could mean life or death for rescuer and rescued.
Dr Falzon asked what was happening in the management of the Police Corps with decisions, priorities and succession planning.
The management had not even got the matter of uniforms right in time with the seasons. True, the government had acted to provide new undervests for bullet-proof vests, but why should it have taken a full year? The file on protective clothing for traffic police had been pending for 12 years.
The estimates for 2011 allocated just €4,000 – €2 per person.
Planned investment for improvements to property allocated €3,000 when the Valletta Police Academy alone was falling to pieces. Training for all of 2011 was being allocated €40,000: not even Lm10 spent on training each member of the corps.
Dr Falzon said the huge schism that existed between headquarters and districts must be solved, even if it was just a perception. So should unbelievable staffing situations that existed in key police stations.
Corps members must not be made to feel like second-class citizens. If the impending exodus was to be stopped or not repeated, there must be a whole new change of mentality.
How long would the government continue to take corps members for a ride on the question of forming a union? And why would it not allow them to negotiate their own collective agreement?
Concluding, Dr Falzon said the arbitration report had been ready since August 2009, so why had the government not done anything yet to implement its recommendations? A board should have been set up, but had not, on the question of overtime payment. What legal procedures was the government talking about when 1,473 members had signed a judicial protest? The true reason was that the government did not have the decency to answer it.
José Herrera (PL) and Nationalist MPs Franco Debono and Beppe Fenech Adami also contributed to the debate.