Tonio Fenech has labelled the Prime Minister’s attempt to justify the “lame” citizenship sale, by quoting from a testimonial the former finance minister had given consultancy firm Henley and Partners, as “cheap”.

“Saying Henley and Partners is a good company does not make the citizenship scheme good,” Mr Fenech said when contacted to react to the Prime Minister’s revelation in Parliament on Tuesday.

“The context is completely different and it was just a cheap way in which Dr Muscat tried to justify a scheme that does not make any sense,” Mr Fenech said.

The testimonial Mr Fenech had given while still in office was used by Henley in a foreword to its Global Residence Hand-book. Henley was chosen by the Government as the concessionaire for its Individual Investor Programme, which Parliament approved two days ago.

Under this scheme, Malta will be selling citizenship at €650,000, without the need to reside or invest in Malta.

The context is completely different

Dr Muscat on Tuesday read out Mr Fenech’s testimonial, in which he praised the company for its “unrivalled expertise and knowledge”.

Mr Fenech’s testimonial reads: “One firm which we have had the pleasure of working with is Henley and Partners. Internationally recognised as the firm of choice for residence and citizenship planning, we sought their advice for the reform of our residence schemes.”

It adds: “Their knowledge and expertise in this area are truly unrivalled and they have imparted to us some very valuable advice.”

Dr Muscat argued that the foreword penned by Mr Fenech contradicted the Opposition’s criticism of choosing Henley as the company to exclusively market the scheme to applicants and then carry due diligence on their applications for naturalisation.

It is this conflict of interest that the Nationalist Party criticised, Mr Fenech said, adding that he could not say a good company was not good. He noted how he had written the foreword last year and the company published it at the beginning of this year.

He added the decision to sell citizenship rather than link it to investment was the Government’s choice and Henley originally proposed it as an investment scheme.

“Henley was one of the many companies that came to us when we were in Government with its ideas on how we could reform the Global Residency Scheme.

“Unlike this Administration, we did not pay Henley for its proposals because it stood to benefit if its idea was chosen,” he said.

Mr Fenech said praising a company for its level of professionalism did not make the “lame” citizenship sale scheme a good one.

“He [Dr Muscat] tried to use this as a justification for his lame scheme. The PN did not criticise Henley as a firm but the conflict of interest it had on the basis of choices the Government had made by giving it exclusivity to market the scheme and also carry out the due diligence,” he said.

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