Will an Opposition MP please ask whether the government plans to cap the sale of passports at X number?
How many thousands of Maltese passports are these two going to sell for hard cash? They won’t tell us.
Let’s make no mistake about it.
People are going to be queuing up in droves to buy Maltese passports for peanuts and with no strings attached.
In DROVES.
In that target market, Eur675,000 for a passport for you and your wife, with another Eur25,000 for passports for your children, even adult children, is chickenfeed – yes, chickenfeed.
It’s chickenfeed even for many people in Malta, let alone the kind of people the government is looking at.
At that price, you’d buy a Maltese passport just to chuck it in your drawer in case you need it years from now, even if you don’t need it right now. Why not? Majtezwel. They won’t wait until they actually need one, because by then, the offer might be closed.
And this is just the point. Is the offer going to close? Is the government going to cap the number of passports it sells? Or is it just going to keep right on selling, selling and selling? When demand is heavy and supply is infinite, when nobody is scrutinising how many the government is selling because it is operating in total secrecy and not even telling parliament, let alone journalists, then the temptation to keep selling is going to be too much to resist.
IT’S MONEY FOR FREE. That’s how the government sees it. You print a small document and stamp it, and you sell that small stamped document for hard cash: Eur650,000 (or Eur25,000 if you’re a wife) for a piece of paper.
We’re looking at a situation where the government is going to be selling literally thousands of Maltese passports: a sort of oil-well that will self-destruct eventually but until it does, will give the government lots and lots of money to play with without the need to have the economy grow by normal means.
The impact of making yourself dependent on selling passports for money is like that of being dependent on selling oil for money. Because the need evaporates to earn money by ordinary hard graft, so does the will and eventually, so does the ability. Why work, when you can just sell passports?
I can see a nightmare unfold, because between them, those two men who are as money-grubbing as hell, find ways of turning everything around them into cash, and who will sell their mothers for a fast buck – and here I mean the prime minister (who leased his own car to the government and carried right on using it) and Manuel Mallia (whose maids were made to fetch water from the Mainguard fountain) are going to be completely unable to resist the lure of selling thousands of bits of paper for countless millions.
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Does Manwel Mallia always cock his head at that uncomfortable angle to avoid a triple chin, to look taller, or both?
What really baffles me is how the government of a democratic country forming part of the European Union can act on something as sensitive as selling citizenship in total secrecy.
Does the European Union actually allow that one of its members becomes a country akin to China, Cuba and Russia, with a government bulldozing its way so that the elite few may fatten their pockets as much as they can be fattened?
Don’t individual member countries of the EU have the right to question Malta who these new citizens are? I believe that it would be perfectly within their rights as to who to allow or otherwise to become their citizen (EU passport) via this scheme.
Think hard as I might, I cannot picture any member of the real international talented community even dreaming of buying a Maltese passport. I have in mind legit international business people. In the absence of such people being interested in a Maltese passport, the question springs to mind: who would then be interested in secretly buying a Maltese identity?
Will the opposition spearhead a ‘moviment’ and publicly, in very straightforward terms, outline the many deficiencies of this scheme? ‘Moviment’ is pretty much a catchy word for a great number of persons.
Each passport sold will also include a vote for use in the general election.
[Daphne – Actually, it won’t. Votes don’t come with Maltese passports. Ask any Australian or Canadian who also has a Maltese passport.]
This could possibly mean thousands of votes more for PL. A person having just paid EUR 650,000 would not want to lose that money and newly acquired Maltese passport.
Emm, could it be, and I bloody well hope so for all our sake’s that the E.U is waiting for the legislation to pass through parliament before it stamps out this blatant and shameful abuse ? What are they waiting for ? This is not just a Maltese passport but also an E.U passport with all its benefits.
Many people I know voted Labour because they thought it was “their turn now”. It became fashionable to vote Labour.
These people would tell you, you know, they expected nothing great from Labour but at least we are in the EU now and that will prevent them from committing the excesses and blunders they are historically known for.
I know it is bad form to say this, but frankly I don’t care, so here goes…I TOLD YOU SO YOU BUNCH OF MORONS AND YOU HAVE NOBODY TO BLAME BUT YOURSELVES.
They might as well have put a thousand passports up for auction to the highest bidder.
Once those people get their brand-new Maltese passport, I wonder how many of them will actually set foot in Malta as they are only interested in Schengen freedom of movement.
You say the government will sell thousands of passports, what evidence is there to back this comment up with?
[Daphne – If you work for a business company, Tom, pop down to the relevant department and ask them how they accumulate evidence on sales projections. But in brief: demand for cheap EU passports with no strings attached is high, supply through Malta is now infinite, and those administering the supply show signs, in other areas of their operations, to be unhampered by moral and ethical codes or even foresight (see stance on EU membership). Rational conclusion: thousands of Maltese passports will be sold.]
I can’t imagine how they can hide millions from the sale of the passports without being found out.