A PN government would publish details of people who acquired Maltese citizenship under the Individual Investor Programme scheme, Opposition leader Simon Busuttil promised this evening.
He made the commitment after a two-hour meeting of the scheme's monitoring committee during which, he said, he was not given a list of people who had benefited.
The Monitoring committee meets once a year and includes the Prime Minister, the Home Affairs Minsiter and the scheme’s regulator Dr Godwin Grima.
“The Prime Minister had promised that he would lift the secrecy on this programme and tell the people about who was acquiring Maltese citizenship. Despite this long meeting we have not been given this information yet” Dr Busuttil said.
Dr Busuttil said that “the PN will practice what it preaches”.
“We will have no secrecy as we believe that the Maltese public has the right to know who his fellow citizens are. We will have no problem to publish a list of people who will have acquired citizenship through this scheme.”
According to Dr Busuttil, the Committee was informed that by the end of last month, a total of 73 applicants have been given Maltese citizenship and that some €76 million were paid so far through the scheme. Additionally 176 dependents of the applicants were also given passports.
Dependents, who include parents, spouses, partners and children of the main applicants get a passport for a discounted rate of €25,000 each. On the other hand, main applicants have to pay €650,000 for each passport and are obliged to buy a property of at least €350,000 or rent an immovable property to the tune of €16,000 a year. Main applicants are also obliged to reside in Malta for at least 12 months before the granting of their passport.
Dr Busuttil said that the opposition was also concerned that the government was not respecting the 12 month requirement for applicants to reside in Malta, negotiated with the European Commission.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said the IIP scheme has already raised €75 million for the National Development Fund, of which 70 per cent would be spent on national social projects.
Reacting to the Opposition’s insistence for the government to publish the names of those who acquired citizenship through the IIP scheme, Dr Muscat said that the names of all those granted citizenship were being published in the Government Gazzette, according to law. The list included those who obtained Maltese citizenship through other means.
The Prime Minister said the government had been advised by the Attorney General not to release a specific list of names of those acquiring citizenship through the IIP.