Opposition leader Simon Busuttil said today he expects the prime minister to keep his promise about lifting secrecy on the passports scheme by handing him a list of those given a Maltese passport and their home country, when the monitoring committee meets on Tuesday.

The government, in a quick reaction said, however, that the list of persons granted citizenship under the Citizenship by Investment Programme  (the passports scheme) was published within the whole list of persons granted citizenship. In terms of the law, no politician had a right for the personal details of people granted a passport under this scheme. (See below)

Dr Busuttil spoke about what he described as abuses in the granting of residence permits during a Radio 101 interview this morning, and said he hoped such 'filth' did not extend to the sale of passports.

He referred to the discussion in the Security Services Committee and said that while the discussion was confidential, he would not tolerate a situation where the Minister of Home Affairs said the contrary of what was said in the committee.

The minister's claim that the police investigations started at the instigation of Identity Malta and its chairman was not true. The authority's chairman, Joe Vella Bonnici, had had no idea of what was happening under his nose, and he should resign or be made to go.

"I will not be an accomplice with Carmelo Abela or Joseph Muscat in a lie,' Dr Busuttil said. 

MUSCAT AND MIZZI ARE THE TRANSPORT PROBLEM, NOT THE WEATHER 

Dr Busuttil described the traffic situation as a daily disgrace, and not just Friday when the rain caused havoc. The equivalent of a working day was being wasted every week by many people who were stuck in traffic every day.

Two-and-a-half years had passed since the election, and the government was showing it had no idea how to tackle the problem. And then, last year, the government ridiculed the Opposition's proposal for subsidised school transport for pupils in Church and independent schools - encouraging parents to take this option instead of driving their children to school. Meanwhile, the government had tripled the bus service subsidy, with no service improvement.

Last Friday people missed medical interventions, classes, flights or arrived late at work. This was a national, fundamental problem. The problem was not the weather, but Joseph Muscat and Minister Joe Mizzi, Dr Busuttil said.  

ECONOMIC GROWTH NEEDS TO BE SUSTAINABLE

When he spoke about the Budget, Dr Busuttil said economic growth needed to be sustainable - not based on one-offs and a sharp rise in public debt. And wealth needed to be fairly distributed. At present, 100,000 people were at risk of poverty and many pensioners could not make ends meet.

Dr Busuttil said some of the PN proposals stemmed from calls made by the private sector, such as the GRTU's call for a further 30 per cent reduction in power tariffs.  

It was ironic, Dr Busuttil said, that the government was elected on a promise to reduce the tariffs and now that the conditions existed for further cuts, the government was saying 'no'.

The same arguments applied to petrol and diesel fuel. Average prices in Malta were now higher than in the EU, when average wages in the EU were far higher than Malta. 

GOVERNMENT REACTION

‎In a reaction, the Office of the Prime Minister said the Citizenship by Investment Programme (the passport scheme) enjoyed the highest level of processes and was overseen by a regulator.

The list of persons granted citizenship under this programme was published within the whole list of persons granted citizenship. 

In terms of the law, however, Dr Busuttil had no right for the personal details of the persons granted citizenship under the scheme. 

The OPM said Dr Busuttil was again trying to obstruct the scheme as he had unsuccessfully done in the past, despite the scheme's benefits for the economy. 

The government would abide by the law, including its provisions on transparency but would also rely on the regulatory, whose report is made public. 

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