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Karl Schembri
The police have interrogated yet another Transport Authority official last Monday as part of its investigations into the cash-for-licences scandal.
The man, Alfred Magrin, also happens to be the father of one of the investigated driving test examiners and is the authority’s Management Enforcement Officer in the Planning Directorate.
Last Sunday, MaltaToday revealed that his son, Nicholas Magrin, had run over the elderly father of Labour MP Joseph Cuschieri as he was driving a van in a drunken state. The 71-year-old accident victim was walking on a zebra crossing in Sliema. Three breathalyser tests marked Nicholas Magrin’s alcohol levels at 103mg, 92mg and 87mg respectively, way above the permitted 35mg.
The police however have not yet issued any charges against Nicholas Magrin on this specific accident, despite the damages suffered by the victim and the high alcohol levels registered by a breathalyser test.
Even the Transport Authority did not take any disciplinary measures against Magrin, but just transferred him internally from the testing department to its headquarters as security officer. According to Transport Minister Jesmond Mugliett, the authority could not discipline Nicholas Magrin given that no police procedures were initiated against him.
Mugliett denied that Magrin’s father, as a high-level authority manager, influenced the decision to keep him instead of suspending him.
“His father was informed by the chief executive after the decision to transfer him was taken,” the minister said.
According to last Sunday’s KullHadd, his father Alfred Magrin would have been heard and minuted during a transport authority meeting in June last year while he was in a telephone conversation discussing the driving test, although the newspaper stopped short of publishing further details.
Meanwhile on Monday, Mugliett said in parliament that it was too early to apportion blame for the alleged bribery scandal but added the authority will be reviewing its structures, reporting lines and whether there had been indications of irregularities and how these were treated.
Police investigations into the Transport Authority’s driving test bribery scandal had been going on for almost a year, culminating with the arrest of all six examiners in the last three weeks following MaltaToday’s revelations published at the end of May. Only one of the examiners has been allowed back to work while the others have been put on forced leave. |
