IIP applicants: Opposition still in the dark

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil has not yet been given concrete details of new citizens who have purchased a Maltese passport under the Individual Investor Programme.

The IIP, which sells Maltese passports for €650,000 apart from other residency and investment requirements, remains a source of controversy for the secrecy surrounding the new citizens who want free movement across the EU and visa-free travel to the United States.

Simon Busuttil, who has vowed to publish the names of IIP passport holders, however has not yet laid his hands on the information despite a recent report by the regulator indicating that there have been over 450 applicants.

“The Prime Minister should keep his promise on transparency with regards to the IIP programme. Whilst a number of meetings were held, no concrete details were given,” Busuttil, who sits on a monitoring committee of the IIP with Joseph Muscat, told MaltaToday.

A government member who spoke to this newspaper said that the first list of citizens that will include holders of the ‘golden passport’ can be expected in 2015, since the IIP started in 2014 and applicants are granted citizenship after 12 months of residency.

The list will not make any distinction between naturalised citizens, and those who have paid for their passport.

The amended Maltese Citizenship Act no longer binds the home affairs minister to publish the names of all naturalised citizens every three months in the Government Gazette. That important clause, which guaranteed some form of transparency on citizenship, was expunged by a new clause setting up the regulator of the IIP.

But a legal notice that sets down the rules for the IIP says the minister has to publish an annual list of all those granted Maltese citizenship by registration or naturalization, including those persons who were granted Maltese citizenship under the programme.

Anonymity for IIP applicants was an important condition laid down by citizenship concessionaires Henley & Partners, something that was vigorously opposed by the Opposition.

When in November 2013, the government started making concessions to change the IIP, deputy prime minister Louis Grech had told MaltaToday that IIP passport holders would no longer be secret.

While that statement was believed to mean that IIP citizens would be published in the regular quarterly lists, when the government moved its amendments to citizenship laws, it totally removed the clause that mandated the publication of naturalised citizens; replacing it the clause appointing a regulator, who compiles an annual report on the IIP without including any personal data of applicants.

The Opposition opposed the removal of the clause, saying that the names should not remain secret. “There should be discreetness,” Opposition MP Tonio Fenech had said during the committee debate on the law. “But [the names] should appear in the register, not hidden. What citizenship is it if we hide them?”

The IIP regulator’s report so far has revealed enormous interest from Russian citizens – over half of the 459 applications. Fishing out the new citizens of Malta in this year’s list will be quite a chore.