Updated | Blacked out clauses in Henley contract ‘render PAC meetings futile’

Fourteen blacked out causes in the contract signed between the government and IIP concessionaires Henley & Partners make it impossible for the public accounts committee to scrutinise the ‘value for money’ of the contract, Nationalist MP Claudio Grech said today.

Addressing a meeting of the parliamentary committee tasked with investigating the Henley contract, Grech said the committee could not function without those clauses.

“It has nothing to do with the number of clauses blacked out,” he said, after justice minister Owen Bonnici told the PAC that only 14 clauses – out of a total of 206 – had been blacked out.

“Without those clauses we cannot reach a conclusion on the contractual obligations and Henley’s relationship. How can we even determine whether the contract translates into value for money when you remove all parameters of payments?” Grech said.

The PAC has started meeting to scrutinise the deal reached with Henley & Partners, who oblige the Maltese government to provide its top brass to promote the Individual Investor Programme – the sale of Maltese citizenship at €650,000.

The government’s contract with citizenship specialists Henley was tabled last Wednesday. Meeting this afternoon, the PAC was meant to agree on a list of witnesses and hold a discussion on the blacked-out clauses after the opposition demanded an explanation.

Instead, 90 minutes were spent debating whether it was up to the PAC’s chairman –Tonio Fenech – to determine which safeguards should be in place to respect the contract’s commercially sensitive information or whether the PAC should take the government’s word for it.

Obviously, both sides made it clear that there was no mutual trust and the Speaker will be once again asked to deliver a ruling to clarify how the committee should proceed, based on a previous ruling which the PAC failed to agree upon.

Put simply, Fenech argued that he, as the committee’s chairman, should have read the contract with the government and then ensure that commercially sensitive information was properly safeguarded. On the other hand, Bonnici said the government had already “adopted those safeguards” and the committee should trust them.

The Speaker’s ruling said that the chairman “had to ensure that all precautions are taken to safeguard national security, commercial secrecy and other circumstances”.

Fenech also pointed out that he had taken an oath when he became the committee’s chairman, which meant that his “interest was to protect his role as chairman and not to act in any political partisan manner”.

Bonnici today tried to explain why the 14 clauses had been blacked out: the clauses relate to the description of the process flow of commissions paid to the concessionaires; clauses relating to descriptions of performance targets; and clauses relating to descriptions on the internal process flow that affect the IIP’s marketability.

Grech however said that the explanation given by Bonnici was not enough: “You simply gave us a generic explanation. Do we have to constantly keep turning to the Auditor General to find out whether a contract is giving value for money? We don’t want to reopen the debate on the IIP, but we want to analyse the contract.”

Bonnici said he was aware that the government’s stand to defend the blacked-out clauses was not the “most popular position” but it was nonetheless the “right one to take” to protect the IIP’s success.

PN deputy leader Mario de Marco said that the Opposition had no interest in publishing conditions of the contract “just for the sake of it … but we can’t expect the government to use its majority to hinder the scrutiny process of this contract”.

Acknowledging that the government had used its majority to publish the contract, de Marco said it was up to the chairman of the committee to ensure that all safeguards respecting confidentiality were in place.

List of witnesses tabled by the Opposition:

1. Joseph Muscat, Prime Minister

2. Louis Grech, deputy Prime Minister

3. Manuel Mallia, former home affairs minister

4. Owen Bonnici, justice minister

5. Edward Zammit Lewis, tourism minister

6. Edward Scicluna, finance minister

7. Silvio Scerri, former chief of staff

8. Kevin Mahoney, permanent secretary at the home affairs ministry

9. Alfred Camilleri, permanent secretary at the finance ministry

10. Anthony Cachia, Contracts Department director general

11. Public Contracts Review Board members

12. The official who prepared the request for proposal/expression of interest

13. Bidders' representatives

14. Peter Grech, Attorney General

15. Keith Schembri, chief of staff OPM

16. Joe Bannister Chairman MFSA

17. Joseph Vella Bonnici Chairman Identity Malta

18. Jonathan Cardona (Identity Malta)

19. Neil Harrison, head of Central Visa Unit

20. Michael Cassar, Police Commissioner

21. Peter Paul Zammit, former Police Commissioner

22. Ray Zammit, former Police Commissioner

23. Chris Kalin, Henley & Partners

24. Eric Guy Major, Henley & Partners

25. Michael Charles Lucas, Henley & Partners

26.Nadia Susan Lucas, Henley & Partners

27. Hugh Trelawny Morshead, Henley & Partners

28.Dr Adrian Camilleri, company director  Henley & Partners

29. Chair, Federation of Estate Agents

30. Godwin Grima - IIP regulator

31. Dimitry Kochenov (Maltese government's legal consultant)

32. Nuri Katz, President of Apex Capital Partners Corporation

33. Justin Simon former Attorney General, Antigua

34. Denzel Douglas former Prime Minister ta' St Kitts

35. Baldwin Spencer former Prime Minister of Antigua

36. Toni Abela, Deputy Leader PL

37. Joe Cordina Tezorier Partit Laburista

38. James Picopo former CEO Partit Laburista

39. Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi President Partit Laburista