Whether one agrees in principle with the concept of selling citizenships in the way that the government has proposed, and whether one agrees that Maltese citizenships should be sold against a flat fee with no more tangible investment strings attached, the fact that the names of those people becoming Maltese citizens through the Individual Investment Programme will remain forever shrouded in secrecy is simply wrong.
In so many ways, the notion runs against the grain of the very concept of citizenship of a country, to forming part of one’s adoptive community. No amount of money is enough to offset the fact that Malta will have incognito citizens, whose status as citizens of this country is known to none but a very select few.
The Opposition leader yesterday threatened to publish the list of all those on the receiving end of Maltese citizenships through the programme when returned to government – turning up a notch his attempts to scuttle the programme before it gets off the ground. This threat is coupled with similar threats to revoke all the citizenships granted and to repeal the programme at some point in the future when the Nationalist Party is returned to power.
Whether out of moral conviction or political convenience, the Opposition’s stance, particularly as regards the secret citizenships, is undoubtedly the correct one.
This secrecy clause is obviously one of the programme’s major selling points, but one must also examine the costs attached to that. Yes, certain people in the government, as well as the Leader of the Opposition, could and will have access to that list but without complete transparency – as previously provided by the now scrapped requirement that all new citizens’ names are published in the Government Gazette – how can anyone be absolutely positive that unsavoury characters will not be allowed citizenship?
Yes, the government has pledged the best due diligence system in the world when it comes to vetting citizenship candidates. And there is little doubt that the system being put in place is a rigorous one.
In short, Henley & Partners will conduct screening and government agency Identity Malta will apply its own set of screening processes. The government will then give its final approval or otherwise.
After submitting what has been described as ‘voluminous’ application forms, applicants will be subjected to background checks that will investigate whether they or anyone in their family have a criminal record or have any pending criminal actions against them.
Such checks and balances are to include the use of global databases used by most financial institutions with highly specific internet search engine strings to capture any public domain information on the applicant, their families and their companies and additional background verification reports by an international due diligence firm.
The aim of the latter is to independently validate the veracity of information provided by applicants through the use of significant resources and experienced personnel in various regions of the world. Additionally, the required police certificates will be subjected to additional checks with international crime agencies.
Once the information has been gathered, a risk-weighting exercise will be undertaken by personnel with significant experience in dealing with high net worth individuals and risk management principles will be used to assess each application against an authorised risk-weighted matrix.
While this is all well and good, it is the actual architecture of the programme and in particular its inherent secrecy that is being called into question.
A further complication arises when any of these new citizens choose to reside permanently in Malta and as such meet the requirements of the country’s antiquated rules of voter eligibility. Every citizen has the right to vote but would these new citizens be listed on the Electoral Register like everyone else and if not, what are the implications of that? Would they be required to forfeit their right to vote in order to maintain their state-provided cover, or would they be allowed to vote without their names having been published in the register?
Also, what happens should any of these new citizens be required to appear in court – as a plaintiff, defendant or a witness in any type of case whatsoever? Will their names be banned from publication by the courts?
This also has implications on the very social fabric of the country. Not only does a prospective new citizen not even need to ever set foot in the country even once in their lives to gain citizenship, but they will also be secret, incognito citizens among us.
In its headlong rush to implement the programme, the government would have done well to have tempered its understandable quest to raise funds with more sensitivity to the Maltese people, to what makes a person a productive part of Maltese society and to assure the public, and even other governments, that the programme is being operated above board in each and every respect.