And at the expense of Maltese professionals too.

Many are under the impression that they are now on a level playing field with Henley & Partners. Not quite. Their applications get vetted by IIP Processing which is owned by Henley (incidentally a relative of one of the Labour ministers, Edward Zammit Lewis, sits on the Board) so Henley is still a gatekeeper.

And this is a company who has already been known to promise the fast tracking of applications if paid more. Moreover Henley get paid 4% fee on every successful applicant so they make monies on others clients too.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101692038

The Maltese ‘transparent’ Government has to constantly be pushed to publish public agreements like this Henley contract and the power station related deals which the Prime Minister says were signed and were not signed etc.

Next week there is a conference in Malta put on by Henley to celebrate the program. They will not want to defend the contract at that conference.

But in any case, the speaker of the house protected the PM by saying that commercially sensitive information does not need to be disclosed.

That means that the amount of money paid to Henley, for no good reason as there is no reason for a concessionaire to exist, will not be disclosed.

The rest does not matter. What matters is how much money the government is losing by being provided a service (badly I might add) that the government does not need and could do itself.

Who is this “rival bidder”?

Isn’t it convenient that a mysterious bidder is holding up this situation?

Is this the prime function of this rival bidder?

[Daphne – Most definitely not.]

Let’s see it differently. After the Speaker’s ruling, as long as the Labour government continues to hide the contract with Henley & Partners, we can assume that the entire contract is against national security and that is why the government is keeping it under wraps.

Il-gvern jghid li il-kuntratt ikun ippublikat ‘in due time’.

U dan kollu qabel ma ltaqa il-PAC.

Din bhal tat-tanker qabel ittiehed il-vot.

The Public Accounts Committee, having a majority of Labour MPs, will eventually vote against the disclosure of the contract and then the Government, that is Joey Muscat, will come out saying that it will abide by the ruling of the Public Accounts Committee.

It’s a win-win situation for the Baron of Burmarrad. The Speaker’s got his back.