Prime Minister Joseph Muscat yesterday promised that a list of all the people given Maltese citizenship in 2016 would be published “in the coming days”.

The list, usually published in August, makes no distinction between those who paid for their passport and those who became Maltese citizens though naturalisation.

Asked by this paper why the list had not yet been published, Dr Muscat said it was not always published during the same period. “The information I have is that it will be published in the coming days,” Dr Muscat said.

Pressed to explain the delay, he said he did not know whether there were any “technical problems”.

“It is really and truly an issue of days now.”

Earlier this month, Dr Muscat refused to give Parliament information on the people who have bought their passport under the government’s controversial citizenship scheme.

It is not always published in August

He rejected a request by PN MP Karol Aquilina to identify the people on a Government Gazette list of hundreds who were given Maltese citizenship in 2015.

Dr Muscat told Parliament that the law regulating the scheme did not allow for such distinctions. Doing so could result in discrimination and violated the principle of equality for all citizens, Dr Muscat said.

The scheme, as originally envisioned by concessionaires Henley & Partners, would not even have allowed for the publication of names in the Government Gazette.

In a separate question asking for the age and sex of passport buyers, Dr Muscat said the information would not be given, to protect people’s data and privacy.

A December report by anti-corruption NGO Transparency International Russia charted how two Russian politicians bought Maltese citizenship, seemingly in defiance of Russian laws.

It said the abuses it identified demonstrated the vulnerability of Malta’s scheme, and the lack of transparency and verification by the EU created additional opportunities for “corrupt officials” who wanted to avoid justice.

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