They’re going to remove the secrecy clause, but did they hold a press conference about it? No, Louis Grech told Malta Today.
How professional, God bless them. They hold a press conference about every high tea, but on the really important issues, they either avoid journalists or hold a casual conversation with their friends at Malta Today.
And does the right hand know what the left is doing?
Chris Cardona and Edward Zammit Lewis gave a press conference today and said nothing about removing the secrecy clause on the sale of citizenship, but then Louis Grech had a chat with one newspaper and told them.
So it’s back to the publication, in The Government Gazette, of all names of those who become Maltese citizens. The readership of that august publication is going to sky-rocket. You can read it online in PDF format at the Department of Information site.
Grech took great care to tell Malta Today that it was he who persuaded the prime minister to do away with the secrecy clause. And it was he, not the PM, who gave the news. Well, they had no choice, did they – that newspaper’s own surveys showed that while 53% are against the sale of citizenship, 70+% are against the secrecy and 90+% of those with a university education oppose it.
Publication of the names means that we will know who is getting a Maltese passport and also – more pointedly – how many passports they are selling.
Louis Grech passed on the blame for the secrecy clause to Henley & Partners, telling Malta Today that it was done on the advice of “citizenship programme experts” who said that confidentiality is important for “high net worth individuals”.
Yes, and it’s also important for crooks, frauds and criminals.
In any case, they’re the boss and they can’t blame those they have employed because the decision was the government’s and not Henley & Partners’. Henley & Partners only see their own narrow interests and how many hundreds of millions they can make for themselves from this scheme.
Our law does not permit discrimination between one kind of naturalised citizen and another: you can’t ban the publication of the names of high net worth individuals or those who pay for their passports but keep it mandatory to publish the names of those who become citizens through marriage or because they had a Maltese parent.
All this is very worrying. It worries me to see that the government really thought all is was a brilliant idea, that those who say it is not (like the Opposition) are just being negative, and that they had to be hit by a storm of outraged or mocking international press coverage to understand just what a mammoth cock-up this is and how bad the fall-out already is.
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The Malta Today report says that the names of fast-tracked applicants will be published.
It doesn’t say that the names of all applicants will be published.
The mother of all U-turns. Would like to say that common sense has prevailed but most probably it was the backlash in Malta and abroad that did it. Thank heaven for small mercies.
Anyway it’s like a broken glass – no matter how much glue you put on to it – it will still show it’s chipped.
The damage to Malta’s reputation is done. Headlines of our stupidity splashed all over the papers in the EU and beyond. Hardheaded as ever. PL never changes.
Now the government is trying to pick up the pieces.
Let’s be thankful for small mercies.
To me sounds like the EU brought up the security argument with Malta and Malta had to bow. Doesn’t say much for Malta’s current position in the EU.
They’re amateur politicians and professional conmen.
Shouldn’t it have been Manuel ‘I’ve said all I have to say about this matter’ Mallia who made the announcement?
When will the change take effect? Will any passports be issued in the meantime?
Not even good at being incompetent wannabes.
What a shambles. They let the President sign and approve the law only for it to be withdrawn a couple of hours later.
Are we now having another Parliamentary debate regarding the abolishing of the “secrecy” clause? What a charade.
“citizenship programme experts” who said that confidentiality is important for “high net worth individuals”.(Louis Grech)
Shorn from gobbledegook that would mean that the targeted very filthy rich and the very suspect applicants for the Malta IIP passport would not want any publicity for the intrigue.
Did it need Henley & Partners to spell that out to the Malta government? Perhaps yes. Perhaps no. After all, Muscat pleaded ignorance when he appointed an international fraudster banned by the World Bank as his consultant.
Not only did the government not call a press conference but the Prime Minister and Dr Mallia used Louis Grech to save their faces. What a bunch of losers.
After Malta’s reputation has been tarnished beyond recognition by our obstinate prime minister, we find out that after all “Simple” Simon was in the right.
Busuttil won this fight and Muscat is afraid that Busuttil wil gain more support.
Interestingly, it is worth noting that when the government backtracks on some decision, we never see Muscath announcing the “bad” news.
Your last paragraph highlights a very important matter.
Despite their claim that they are a “Gvern li Jisma'” (a government that listens), for weeks the Labour government did not listen to the Maltese public and to the PN opposition. And by public I mean this website, essentially – who else criticised the scheme, The Times?
It was only when they found out that what had been said here and by the PN opposition was actually right that they announced the first retreat.
Labour has a tradition of riding roughshod over the rights and the public opinion of the Maltese.
The truth is that we have more talent here in Malta than they claim they will attract with their scheme from here to eternity.
This retreat shows that Labour’s position has been characterised by ARROGANCE and disrespect towards the Maltese public. It also highlights Labour’s incompetence.
Removing the secrecy clause is not enough. The scheme’s fundamental flaw is the absence of any requirement for some genuine link or connection between the applicant and Malta.
Granting citizenship, without any other requirement other than the payment of a price, makes it no different than the sale of a commodity.
Even though the grant of citizenship may be a matter of national law rather than EU law, by introducing this scheme Malta is brazenly abusing its EU membership rights.
On Xarabank, Owen Bonnici is repeating the story about the government being given the advice to keep the names “confidential not secret.” Good for Mario de Marco for interjecting to shoot Bonnici’s claim down.
Edward Zammit Lewis and his colleague used the word “negative” a lot during their press conference. Like you say, Daphne, in this country – under Labour, naturally – if you criticise then you are negative. Hopefully, the PN will not be drawn into lethargy on hearing such “negativity” thrown at it.
What clowns – Louis Grech votes in favor of the secrecy clause, then suggests to Joseph Muscat to remove it. To add insult to injury he now blames it on Henley & Partners. Ma gbajtux taqaw ghan-nejk?
Any clue why this was now introduced? The US and EU started asking the Government of Malta embarrassing questions and European MEPs started raising concerns about entry of terrorists into Europe.
Are you watching Xarabank? And what is Grace Borg doing there?
Grace Borg has received her iced-bun as well and is going to be in charge of conducting pat down searches of the passport applicants. Apparently, that is interpretation by the epitome of Maltese hamalli of ‘conducting due diligence’ of the applicants.
Government by Facebook poll.
I thought the bill has passed through parliament already. Apart from the irreparable damage to our reputation, we have to pay for extra parliament time to deal with this to-ing and fro-ing.
The prime minister and the deputy prine minister speak as though it is their prerogative to change laws at will or to disregard them once they are enacted.
Government is bound by the rule of law. Making laws is the business of parliament, not government. The secrecy clause is now law. It is not within government’s gift to remove it.
Exactly.
Muscat’s behaviour is that of a benevolent dictator. All that remains is to dissolve parliament declaring he has the will to listen directly to the people.
He also overruled the President of the republic in the process. And if secrecy can be removed, why not remove other aspects and introduce some more?
This is plain institutional chaos.
Watching Xarabank, with a makk of Early Grey.
1. Why is Henley & Partners on the program? Why would a firm of competent professionals accept to appear on a program of debate and political controversy and engage in the discussion? And why exactly would they accept to appear on a program by the name of Xarabank? Is this the level of professional judgement of Henley & Partners? Why is the lady representing Henley & Partners reduced to contradicting a member from the opposition, defending the government, revealing what advice had been given to the government presumably under confidentiality and stating what advice had not been heeded by the government, engaging in debate with members of the public?
2. The lady representing Henley & Partners on Xarabank said that H&P advised the government on three options for the carrying out of due diligence. Why does a company which is selling the citizenship ALSO advise the government on how to carry out due diligence? Don’t they realise that they not only have a conflict of interest if they both sell and do the due diligence, but also if they both sell and advice the government on how to carry out the due diligence. A sales and marketing company cannot act also as the advisor about the scheme. What level of professionalism is this from Henley & Partners?
Henley & Partners is showing sheer lack of professionalism.
The lady representing H&P on Xarabank was visibly defending the Labour party, nodding her head every time an argument was made in favour of the Labour government’s position.
She was also defending the Labour party because it did not include the sale of Maltese citizenship in the electoral program (an argument brought up by Arnold Cassola).
So unprofessional.
We do not need H&P to approve the actions of the Labour government on public media. Quite frankly, we do not need H&P’s interference with our government.
H&P is a third party company contracted by the Labour government to carry out a specific task or tasks. They should focus on doing their tasks, and not on interfering in Maltese politics and media debates to defend the Labour government.
As far as I am aware from public information, H&P’s contract does not include payment for defending the Labour government, but perhaps there is some clause that we missed – after all their contract of engagement has not been published.
It is also unprofessional that she was used to outnumber Mario Demarco and the PN on the panel. There were 4 labour-supporting persons on that panel, and that’s excluding Arnold Cassola. The PN represents 45% of the electorate, and not 25%. On the matter of the sale of citizenship, the PN represents the majority of the Maltese public.
The three companies proposed by Henley and Partners are linked to Henley and Partners. At least one of them is registered in Malta, featuring the same names and Channel Islands address.
Henley & Partners showed very clearly their lack of professionalism and ethics when they accepted to undertake the assignment without waiting for the Maltese Parliament to pass through the law. No more no less.
Henley & Partners’ representative has just said that the citizenship scheme’s due diligence criteria have not been finalised.
The scheme is now law. Applications can be processed. What criteria are to be applied?
Either everything is made public or this controversy will drag throughout the whole legislature.
When Mallia declared it wans’t in our interest to know, referring to the mechanism itself, what Henley will be doing and who the applicants are, he broke the social pact.
We’ve been there, those were times when trust was banished and the Maltese turned on each other.
Maltatoday’s survey lacked one crucial question; Is it constitutional that a private consultancy gets a nihil obstat and full discretionary cover of state affairs?
That would have been another 70%.
Crass amateurs. These people have no business governing a country. They should stick to two bit village clubs. At least that way the damage they cause is limited.
Gorg u Pawlu’s song was incisive, using old Labour anthems to mock the Citizen Scam, erm sorry, Citizen Scheme.
Simon Busuttil had already said that he would be taking part in the Monitoring Committee to find out the names of those who had bought citizenship. He was then going to divulge their names.
The secrecy clause had become effectively useless.
I understand that the law has to be amended again and needs to be approved by Parliament. This will be a good opportunity for the Opposition to renew its objections to the principle of selling citizenship.
And, by the way, didn’t Minister Karmenu Vella say that the international press was lying?
Is the government so worried that it cannot hold its own in a discussion that it had to make sure to have the likes of Grace Borg defending it on Xarabank?
Shame, shame and more shame on who chose the panel and speakers. Do they call that balancing out speakers or was the concept of balancing speakers only valid when the Labour party cried wolf pre-election?
And who is that Aaron Mifsud Bonnici, his contribution was beyond belief.
[Daphne – He’s the General Workers Union’s lawyer.]
Kiteen is feeling the hots for Aaron, and finds him extremely intriguing.
He claims he does not know who Aaron is, and is wondering who is the guy (Aaron) who made such fascinating comments.
Joseph Grima on Facebook:
Ghandna hila bhala Laburisti u partitarji nitkellmu car bejnietna? Intom certi li din hija skema li vvintaha Joseph Muscat jew hija proposta riciklata ta Alfred Sant li kien ried jghamilha fi zmienu u ms kellux cans jghmilha ghax waqqghlu l-gvern tieghu? Din kienet proposta jew vendetta?
A representative of Henley and partners just told us on Xarabank that they will receive a non refundable 10,000 payment upon application. A due diligence will be then carried out. How nice, so Henley’s will get at least 10k, and the Maltese government? Will be left with nothing if the application doesn’t go through. Fascinating.
So Louis Grech was unable to persuade the PM to remove the secrecy clause 3 weeks ago, and 2 weeks and 1 week ago and a couple of days ago when it was clear that the Maltese people did not want it. But he was able to persuade the Prime Minister after the damage was done.
And is he now expecting a prosit? He might have got that had he voted against the idea in the first place if he disagreed with it.
MLP were the first the accuse the PN for not listening to the people, but this after 25 years of Government. They are not listening to the people after 8 months of government. And with 71% disagreeing with them on such an important matter and Muscat still refusing to bow to our will, but then backing down as a result of international negative press, this does not bode well for him.
Let’s not be too hasty. The law currently stands that awarded citizenships are secret. Unless they pass the bill through parliament again, they’re still at liberty of publishing some names and withholding others.
Sweet, he’ll concede some names for our consumption, getting on with the real business.
The behaviour of someone who’s been seriously compromised in his decisions.
Joseph Grima on Facebook:
l-unika klawsola fli storja kollha tac cittadinanza li Jien kontra assolutament hi dik tas-segretezza. Kien hemm ghalfejn naqilghu dal attakki kollha Fuq isem il gvern Laburista u pajjizna biex innehhuha, jekk hu veru? imbaghad l -ewwel qajjimna dak buttiferju kollu , konvint bl- ghajnuna diretta talk PN, esperti fit tfiegh tat tajn , biex b’semplici telefonata tnehhiet? Nafu x’qed nghamlu jew? Joseph nehhiha imma min ipproponiha? Veru l-esperti kif qal Louis Grech Jew xi Phantom of the Opera li jahdem Minn wara u mid dlamijiet?
Oh I see, Henley and Partners are PN moles dispatched to sabotage Muscat.
My head’s spinning.
At the time of writing, on Friday 15th at 23.45, the BBC raised +£15,000,000 for ‘Children in Need’ – without selling a single passport.
Saturday 16th and it has topped the £31,000,000 mark without any passports sold.
Vim Van de Camp was right: There are other ways to make money.
Government in panic station. We have a government trying to repair international damage it has caused to our nation.
Parliament had the opportunity to prevent all this but the government members just stubbornly went ahead.
Now parliament has to legislate again to regularise the change and the president will have to sign again. What a farce. What an amateurish way to run the country.
We have a government that listens to international media but just disregards Maltese opinion.
Oh, look, the bully has been isolated even here.
http://www.chogm2013.lk/files/2613/8452/5871/The_Commonwealth_Heads_of_Government_Meeting_CHOGM_2013_Opening_Ceremony_slider02.jpg
Aghtihom cans. Iridu jarmaw il-marke (sic) fi Pjazza San Gorg qabel javzaw lill-media.
They had to swallow this clause. They were wrong, they were warned, advised, written about, the lot and still they persisted but now the power of the people and Louis Grech prevailed.
Thank you, Daphne, for playing such an important part in all this.
Well, maybe Louis Grech is right especially since it is Henley’s first attempt at this sort of thing and maybe Mallia did not catch the ‘secrecy clause’, although he gives the impression that he had already prepared many secret files for the new Chinese clients.
I believe that even in Parliament he said the the terms of the law were not ‘negotiable’, but I may be wrong.
I would insist that this was not in their mandate and that the intention to leave it out was the intention to defraud both Malta and the European Union.
The Labour Party in Government should resign en masse just over this.
This is what I would call for. Strongly.
Amending the secrecy clause does not make an iota of a difference to the principle to me.
Our passports are not for sale.
Daphne:
Your e-mail address please.
[Daphne – [email protected]]
@ MUSCAT & CO, (Un)LTD
In God’s name: GO
(With apologies to Oliver Cromwell)
Will this now scare away the ‘extra communitarii’ mobsters and crooks who were queuing up at our doors to obtain their EU passports?
Incidentally, did George Abela sign the thing into law WITH or WITHOUT the secrecy part?
I think that’s something our press should look into. Louis Grech’s announcement came rather close.
This is another dirty trick being played upon us Maltese citizens. The law has been approved by parliament against our majority’s wishes. The president signs the law, so Henley & Partners and Joseph Muscat and Manuel Mallia may commence the conferment of Maltese citizenship upon the international criminals drooling for weeks over it.
Henley & Partners have a massive file ready printed signed by the criminals waiting for the Malta government rep to sign it.
And hey presto by the end of this weekend there would be hundreds of nameless, faceless new citizens whose place is really in the prison cells at the country of origin.
The law needs to go back to parliament to be amended. This will take a few months, what with the budget discussions, Christmas holidays, dilly-dallying etc and by the time the law is amended to remove the anonymity clause we would have a thousand criminals holding Maltese passports.
THIS IS STINKINGLY CRIMINAL. We are being governed by a bunch of hoodwinkers taking the whole country for a ride while describing themselves as the saviours of the (second) republic.
But we’re not fools. We can see through all the PL’s shams and shenanigans and the dirty confidence tricks.
25 long years in Opposition is your next (repeat) experience.
Which means Simon Busuttil gets to reveal those names.
And The Times keeps regaling us with fairy stories. Hardly a mention of what is being reported in the foreign press. Yesterday’s leader is a perfect example. Wish the Independent would upgrade it’s leisure page similar to the Times. The only reason I buy it. But never at the week end.
They have just made a U-turn on the secrecy clause. This is proof of joemuscat.com’s lack of foresight. The whole citizenship scheme lacks foresight. Had joemuscat.com been PM at the time of the Libyan revolution, we would now probably be hosting Col Ghaddafi in one of the villas at San Tumas.
It is not enough for a minister to say that they will publish the names. They have to go back to Parliament to amend the legislation so that the names of ALL passports sold will be made public, including those which are sold in the interim.
From the Opposition benches, Joseph Muscat wooed the whole Island with promises of untold magic. 50% +18,000 swooned at his feet. They didn’t see one SIMPLE TRUTH
Lovers help each other undress before sex. However after sex, they always dress on their own.
Moral of the story: In life, no one helps you once you’re screwed.
So Louis Grech wants us to believe that he managed to persuade Joe Muscat to withdraw the secrecy clause.
Come on, the real reason besides the worldwide negative press must have been the political pressure applied by a number of EU governments and possibly also the United States of America.
Labour will pay dearly for this colossal blunder not only in votes, but also in monetary terms as I am sure that the total cost to return Malta to its former respectability will, by far exceed revenue derived from this shameful scheme.
I think Muscat got some very bad vibes from Cameron.
THE POWER OF THE PRESS is not to be taken for granted, dear prime minister.
Can any one correct me if I’m wrong? The law has been signed by the President so it needs to be amended in Parliament, right? If so, then Henley and Joey can sell as many passports as they possibly can, in secrecy, until the law is amended. Typical Labour – so sly.
[Daphne – You are not wrong. You are right.]
That was the plan all along.
Damn!
Besides, they are only consenting to what the PN said they would make public anyway.
So it’s no real movement, just an vain attempt to score points.
U Gorg il-president iffirma l-ligi. Tlift id-daqsxejn rispett li kelli ghalih mhux ghaliex stennejt li ma jiffirmax wara “iced buns” li rcieva.
If Henley and Partners took a decision that has disgraced our country, they should go along with the secrecy clause, and the rest of the bill..
Inzid – nahseb li ffirma wara li kienn daqq nofs-in-nhar
I REALLY would like to know who was the VERY first person to even float this passport sale idea in the first place.
An individual must have come up with this idea. I really wonder who it was.
Alfred Sant? With hindsight, he fits in this mess to a T.
Is it possible they will use the time between now that the law has passed, and the time they pass the amendment, to squeeze through a number of ‘secret’ citizenships? The timing (immediately after the President enacted the law) is suspicious.
How do we know that the list of names will be complete? Surely they can pick and choose which names to include and which to leave out?
The Kitten spoke: “Much ado about nothing”, imnalla jaf b’Shakespeare, miskin.
In some countries they paint them on the wall. In Malta we elect them to fuck the country over.
http://comedycocks.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/cocks-in-bhutan
The government thinks Konrad Mizzi’s grand design for Marsaxlokk is a brilliant idea.
The one where numbers have a life of their own, where 10 is 5, 2014 becomes 2015 and 65,000 prefer being 140,000.
Imagine the magnitude of that typhoon until they’re convinced to stick to the PN’s idea.
We’ll be left peddling a half finished supertanker on Ebay.
And obviously, it will be the PN’s fault.
They got another secrecy clause.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/budget2014/Government-calling-for-land-reclamation-proposals-covering-large-tract-of-sea-Charlo-Bonnici-20131115
‘…Moreover documents related to the government’s call for expression of interest (EOI) for a “concession for the reclamation of land in Maltese waters” are only available against a €5000 fee and the signing of a confidentiality agreement binding bidders not to disclose any information contained in the EOI documents to third parties for the next three years…’
Maltatoday asked for a copy and were told to pay.
The Labour vessel is encountering rough seas. There is panic on board.
In the meantime, yesterday, Cyrus Engerer spoke in favour of this scheme on his Facebook page by comparing it with ship registration.
Robert Musumeci pontificated in similar vein in The Malta Independent on Sunday today. I expect much better from a law student. Even if one were to accept the personification theory in maritime law, which considers a ship to constitute a legal person, however can a ship or aircraft for that matter be equated to a natural person ?
It was always said that the citizenship for sale scheme will harm Malta’s reputation as a financial services centre. The likes of Engerer and Musumeci with their warped reasoning in defence of the indefensible will only lead this country to shed further tears.
Virtually no sooner had the ink dried out on the Presidential assent than the Prime Minister sounded the first bugle retreat on this citizenship sale blunder.
It will not be the last one either, as more humble pie has surely yet to be ate before too long.
The President could have saved much face for our dear Malta had he taken an over my dead body stance and resigned from office with full dignity rather than endorse his Parliament’s shenanigans.
As it turned out, it was much too late before the Prime Minister finally got to smell the coffee. Nor can he blame his loyal Opposition for not exerting every honest effort to open his eyes to what inevitably had to pass.
In life, leaders are continually presented with recommendations, as in the secrecy clause in this case.
Leaders always have to look out for advice which is tainted in favour of the presenter, again, as in this case. Putting the blame on the presenter, for implementing their advice, is admitting that the leader shirked his duty and obligation, (or was unable), to make a valid evaluation.
But it seems that the Maltese public, and international pundits, had to point out the obvious. He could have avoided all this if he had listened to those who had warned him of the danger of implementing the secrecy clause. But pride was stronger.
Of course, greed, at all cost, could have won over common sense.
The interesting part is that the government is saying that they NEED to sell citizenship to pay for the national debt yet the money is going for social projects and not to reduce the national debt. Typical Labour logic.
Also stupid is the fact that the government is boasting about its “gvern li jisma” attitude but then the IIP scheme has been rolled out without any public consultation. How can people be so naïve.
In Labour terms national debt means the nation is indebted to its citizens, hence free everything.
Flats opposite St.John’s currently the rage.
Clause or no clause, the government and somebody with a questionable history like Manuel Mallia, can still secretly sell passports to whoever they want without the publication of names of money flowing through the national coffers.
Passport is not a tradable item held in stock, where one can monitor the count of the stocks, flows, purchases and sales. It is only a matter of printing a few additional passports by ‘orders from above’.
Malta Today recently published an article about the PM quoting Tonio Fenech on Henley & Partners when they had advised him on the much maligned High Net Worth Individuals programme (HNWI). How he referred to them as the experts in the field etc etc.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Citizenship-row-PM-publishes-Fenech-s-praise-for-Henley-20131113
What the Prime Minister (or Malta Today) did not say was what a total cock up that programme was. Fenech got the full brunt of the criticism for that, not Henley & Partners. Yes of course Fenech should take responsibility. His over zealousness killed what could have been a good programme.
However, this does not detract from the fact that Henley’s advice was wrong. In private they would try to distance themselves from the catastrophic failure of HNWI by telling people that the Government did not heed their advice. But yet they hung around as advisers to the Government.
And again their advice was wrong this time round. Probably the one constant will be that again they will say that the Government did not listen to them.
In any event even if Henley and Partners are considered experts in the field this does not justify Appointing them as SOLE concessionaires to the detriment of all those who work in the field and in flagrant disregard of the conflicts that arise between promoting, advising and recommending.
Tonio Fenech did not give them such sole authority. So quoting him doesn’t justify this dangerous and absurd decision of the Labour government. So typical of Joseph Muscat to try to manipulate a situation to justify his own actions.
Was that a Freudian slip by Owen Bonnici when he mentioned during Xarabank that he already spoke (i.e. met) some of the applicants?
Would there have been time to issue the secretive passports before the amendment is done? I don’t trust these conmen and women at all. Shame on all the labour side members of parliament who voted this law in despite their heavy heart. If you can trust Joseph Muscat then we cannot trust your judgement because it is warped.
Selling Malta’s citizenship – how the world sees it:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sale-of-Maltese-citizenship-how-the-world-sees-it/176956612500193?ref=ts&fref=ts