Malta Community Chest Fund set to become a foundation

The Malta Community Chest Fund is set to become a foundation allowing the entity to contribute to research over different illnesses.

Plans for the reform were announced in London while President of the Republic Marie Louise Coleiro Preca was meeting medical consultants in London who work with Maltese patients.

While addressing consultants in an activity organised by the Presidency in London, Coleiro Preca also urged the consultants to share their suggestions on how to strengthen the service provided to Maltese patients.

The activity was also attended to by Maltese consultants who for years have been working in British hospitals.

The Community Chest Fund, which is operated by the Office of the President of the Republic, enjoys blanket exemptions in receiving grants and financial aid without being enrolled with the Officer of the Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations (CVO).

The exemptions, granted by social policy ministers under whom the CVO falls, has allowed the MCCF and church organisations to accept monies and government grants without being regulated or legally accountable - an observation which Commissioner Kenneth Wain said has created a "deficit of public accountability which damages the [voluntary] sector as a whole." 

"There is no legal assurance that the non-enrolled part of the voluntary sector is operating honestly and within the financial laws of the country, even when organisations are in receipt of public funds," Wain had said, noting that the impasse of the Catholic archdiocese on the enrolment of its own organisations and charities has frozen "desperately needed amendments" to the Voluntary Organisations Act.

Wain insisted that enrolment to the Office of Voluntary Organisations should be compulsory, if the sector is to become accountable and transparent.