BREAKING: Vietnamese politician fired from National Assembly yesterday after buying Maltese citizenship for her entire family

The Vietnamese press reports that a member of the Vietnamese National Assembly – the equivalent of parliament – has lost her seat after a unanimous vote against her yesterday.

Nguyen Thi Nguyet Huong, 46, was found to have violated Vietnamese law by holding dual citizenship, which the country does not permit. She had secretly acquired Maltese citizenship, which came to light last Saturday, prompting an emergency meeting of the National Assembly on a Sunday to vote on her dismissal.

The Vietnamese news portal reports that “it is unclear why Huong has dual citizenship”. Sources in Malta have informed me that she paid for her Maltese citizenship under the Maltese government’s ‘sale of citizenship’ scheme, euphemistically known officially as the International Investor Programme (IIP).

Another Vietnamese news portal reports that Huong’s entire family has acquired Maltese citizenship, which means that she has taken advantage of the ‘special group discount’ offered by the Muscat government to citizenship-buyers who also buy Maltese citizenship for their immediate or extended family.

The Muscat government, which introduced the scheme three years ago, touted it as being a way to “attract talent to Malta”, and said that those who “invested” in Maltese citizenship would have to live in Malta for part of the year. It is unclear how a Vietnamese member of parliament fits these requirements.

Malta’s sale of citizenship to individuals from countries which do not allow their citizens to hold dual nationality also raises questions about Malta’s diplomatic negligence – to say nothing about all the questions this particular case raises about the careful due diligence scrutiny to which candidates for the purchase of Maltese citizenship are supposed to be subjected (as we were told).

I suspect that the clue lies in the following piece of information and in the no-longer-secret Panama and offshore operations set up by corrupt accountant Brian Tonna for himself and for key members of the Muscat cabal in March 2013: Nguyen Thi Nguyet Huong chairs TNG Holdings Vietnam Investment Group, which has ploughed money into several urban area and apartment projects in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi. She also chairs the Hanoi Industry and Trade Association.

She won her seat in the 495-seat National Assembly in Vietnam’s general elections two months ago.