Citizenship scheme: whose advice is government hiding?

Last January, this newspaper asked the government to state who advised it before it asked bidders to come forward to run its citizenship scheme. Five months later, John Cordina asks why the government has been so cagey about a programme of which it is ost

At the beginning of this year, The Malta Independent had asked the government a simple question concerning the way the Individual Investment Programme – the selling of Maltese citizenships – was set up.

As things stand, Henley & Partners was granted the role of concessionaire, providing it with responsibilities that no other country operating similar schemes saw fit to entrust to a private entity.

One Caribbean country was close to doing so – Antigua and Barbuda – but the plans were rejected, twice, by the country’s senate before the scheme was redesigned and the role of concessionaire was done away with.

The private company involved in designing that programme was Henley & Partners: its role was subsequently reduced to a six-month consultancy contract which expired last month.

The sequence of events raises questions on the Maltese government’s decision to ask bidders to take up a practically identical role when it published its public service concession dossier on 21 June 2013 – a year and a day ago.

Henley & Partners only officially entered the picture when the agreement with the government was signed in late August, months before Parliament was asked to vote on the programme in question.

It may be pure coincidence that the system being sought by the Maltese government was effectively the same one which Henley & Partners sought to implement elsewhere, but it is something that should be looked into.

Curiously, a story published by Reuters back in 2012 quotes Henley & Partners CEO Eric Major as stating that his company was advising “several other countries that want to adopt citizenship by investment”, including Malta and Croatia.

This was the reason behind this newspaper’s request under the Freedom of Information Act, in which the government was asked to state who had advised it on its planned programme – which, curiously enough, was not included in its voluminous electoral manifesto – before it published its dossier.

That request was made on 14 January to the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), and according to the law, a decision on the request had to be made within 20 working days. That did not exactly happen.

A five-month farce

No acknowledgement or reply was received within the legally stipulated 20-working day period, and a reminder email sent afterwards had no effect, prompting the publication of a follow-up story on 23 February in which the government’s failure to respect a law which the Labour Party had once promised to strengthen was castigated.

Not even this story, however, triggered any form of response from the OPM, prompting The Malta Independent to seek the only remedy provided by law: making a complaint with the Information and Data Protection Commissioner (IDPC).

This complaint was made on 4 March, but there was one complication: the post was vacant. The office of the IDPC did acknowledge the complaint, but no further action was taken until a new commissioner, Saviour Cachia, was appointed in April.

A reminder sent days after Mr Cachia’s appointment on 21 April appears to have had its effect, as the OPM finally acknowledged the existence of the request in an email sent three days later.

Regrettably, the spokesman insisted that a fresh request should be sent to the Home Affairs Ministry, and rejected this newspaper’s argument that the question primarily concerned the government – which is the Prime Minister’s responsibility.

But the OPM does not appear to be familiar with the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, which stipulates that when a request has been made to another public authority, it is up to the recipient to transfer the request and inform the applicant accordingly, not later than 10 working days after receiving the request – in this case, this should have been done in late January.

In any case, The Malta Independent ended up making the same request to the Home Affairs Ministry, with the OPM spokesman insisting he was sure that “deadlines will be respected”.

This guarantee proved to be hollow, however, as the ministry’s inaction mirrored the OPM’s own.

Once more, this newspaper ended up sending a reminder to the ministry, and once more this elicited no reaction.

Curiously enough, however, the ministry did acknowledge a fresh Freedom of Information request made on the same day of the complaint – in which it was asked to supply the actual contract signed with Henley & Partners. Whether the ministry actually ends up providing the contract – even with “commercially-sensitive” details redacted – remains to be seen.

But the ministry’s readiness to acknowledge this request, perhaps only serves to raise more questions about the government’s decision to ignore the first request repeatedly, in spite of the complaints, correspondence and articles that have been made since.