For the second day in a row, the government avoided giving important details in Parliament on questions on the cash-for-citizenship scheme.
Following Monday’s refusal to give details to a number of questions tabled by Opposition leader Simon Busuttil, including on the nationality of those who have so far applied for Maltese citizenship, Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia on Tuesday only gave few details and repeated that the regulator would give all the necessary information “at the opportune moment”.
Asked specifically to state how many dependents of applicants had applied to benefit from the scheme, Dr Mallia said six people had submitted a “complete application”.
Apart from paying the fee of €650,000 and making investments in property and bonds, applicants can also buy citizenship for their dependents at a fee of €25,000 each.
Pressed by Dr Busuttil to publish the procedural guidelines of the scheme, which the government had to draw up according to the law, Dr Mallia again refused to make the information available.
Questions sent to the Home Affairs Ministry on Monday seeking to clarify conflicting statements on the scheme made by Henley & Partners and Dr Mallia also remained unanswered.
Times of Malta asked the minister to clarify how many applications for Maltese citizenship has been submitted to Identity Malta so far, the nationality of the applicants and what stage had the applications reached.
Even Jonathan Cardona, the chief executive of Identity Malta, remained silent despite various messages.
Last week, Henley & Partners, the scheme’s concessionaire, announced that, in its first three months, the scheme saw about 100 individuals make financial commitments to the programme to the tune of €100 million.
However, when asked for more details on the commitments made, Dr Mallia said that no investments had been made so far “as none of the applications have so far reached the stage where they are asked to commit any investment”.
The minister also said there were 144 bids for a residence permit in preparation for citizenship, including 12 complete applications.