The Opposition is insisting that according to a Speaker’s ruling it is the duty of the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee to decide which safeguards should be taken on contacts the committee decides to publish.

It made its arguments during a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee today which met to scrutinise the government’s contract with Henley and Partners, the main administrators of the Individual Investment Programme (the citizenship scheme).

Last week, the Opposition objected to the blacking out of some clauses. The government said the parts which were blacked out consisted of commercially sensitive information.

Both sides agreed that an explanation would be given of what the clauses consisted of today.

Justice Minister Owen Bonnici told the committee during today’s meeting that only 14 out of 206 clauses were blackened.

They related to process flow of the commissions to be paid and performance targets, both commercially sensitive matters and to the internal process flow, which could affect the marketability of the programme.

Chairman Tonio Fenech said it was not the committee’s intention to hinder the scheme or to divulge information that might benefit competitors.

However, according to the Speaker’s ruling, the procedure should have been that the chairman would decide whether safeguards should be taken.

The government had done the chairman’s work and blackened the clauses it wanted to blacken itself.

Dr Bonnici said the government decided to publish the contract, something it could have opted not to as it enjoyed a majority within the committee.

The chairman’s job now was to ensure that all necessary safeguards had been taken.

PN deputy leader Mario de Marco said that once the committee had decided to publish the contract, it had to be the chairman who decided that all necessary safeguards were taken and not the government.

The committee had decided to publish the contract and according to the Speaker’s ruling it was the chairman who should decide whether all the necessary safeguards were taken and not the government.

Nationalist MP Claudio Grech said the blacked out clauses made it impossible for the committee to scrutinise the contract's value for money. This held for both the legalistic and accounting aspects.

Government MP Charles Mangion, who repeatedly quoted the minutes of the last PAC meeting, said that if no agreement could be reached on the published version the committee should go back to the Speaker for his decision.

Towards the end of the meeting Mr Fenech suggested that he and Dr Bonnici get together over the full version of the contract next week and refer any contested parts to the Speaker.

Dr Bonnici retorted that since the opposition did not seem to have confidence in his given word the matter should go to the Speaker.

Closing the meeting, Mr Fenech said he would ask the Speaker to define the procedure to be followed.

At the beginning of the sitting, the PN tabled a list of witnesses (see pdf link below). The government said it would analyse the list and be tabling its own later.