I still have it around somewhere.

On 3 February 1995 I attended the inauguration of the new MFSA building at Mriehel. As a guest, I was given a silver memento.

On the same evening, just a few miles away, a tragedy was taking place: the explosion on board the Um el Faroud ship.

The two events were, of course, unrelated. But in a way the MFSA, with its vision of the future, contrasted with the back-breaking work at the dockyard which could – and in this case did – become lethal.

To get there, on the cusp of a new age in Malta’s financial services, took a steely decision on the part of the government of the time. For Malta had already gone for an offshore financial services jurisdiction and looked like making great strides.

But the EFA government held back and forced a U-turn: from offshore to onshore. It may have, and indeed it did, cause the pace to slow down and some people were very angry at the loss of revenue. But that administration clearly understood the signals coming from Brussels that Malta could forget accession to the EU if it persisted in becoming a rogue offshore jurisdiction.

In fact, the other aspirant country to EU membership with the same intentions with regard to financial services – Cyprus – was ahead of Malta as an offshore jurisdiction, but it had to do the same U-turn as did Malta, only, in their case it was harder.

Becoming an onshore jurisdiction in the end helped Malta enormously. Malta soon made it to the White List and the other groupings of the virtuous and her financial services are now respected by one and all.

The people at the dockyard, not just the nine who died on that day, were honest, hard-working people but they were handling obsolete items that could become deadly. Financial services, on the other hand, are clean, efficient and offer great prospects, but only if they remain on the straight and the narrow.

Almost 20 years after this change, it seems that some are not happy with the growth there has been in this regard. This is how I interpret this government’s resolute push to the passports for sale/citizenship scheme. Instead of continuing along the gradual development of financial services, which has greatly progressed even though the beginning was rather slow – slower than if we had gone the offshore route – some of us want more and more. They may think they have discovered the philosophers’ stone to easy and instant riches.

I know what I’m talking about: you get people who quite vociferously side with the Opposition party and yet make no bones about their eagerness to get their hands on the bonanza that’s coming in, as they see it. It’s all easy money and soon Malta will be like Monaco or Liechtenstein, with brass plates outside each door and everybody making out well. It makes a huge difference from back-breaking jobs and messy manufacturing.

One of the reasons why Malta chose to adhere to the straight and narrow in 1995 was precisely because Malta can easily be taken over by an oligarch or two, or a Mafia or two. After all, look at Ukraine today: it is far bigger than Malta but nevertheless can be taken over by an oligarch or two. That is precisely why Malta became a member of the EU: it is quite unable to defend itself as it is – its territorial integrity, its independence and sovereignty. To play around with citizenship issues and give out passports to people who should not have them helps pull down this protective wall that Malta has providently given itself.

I have been thinking: who would be interested in such a scheme? And so far I can only come up with Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, Chinese millionaires, Gaddafi henchmen and Azeri princesses. There’s an enormous amount of money sloshing around for those with no qualms where they get it from. Obviously we, and all governments in the world, will be keen to follow the way the process will be handled. That, rather than all the words in the laws, will be what matters.

So far we have had visits by Chinese billionaires who hide their faces and Azeri princesses who hold soirees at state venues. Such people can and do go on trips to London, which has no qualms about letting them in. But they are not offered a British passport. Or rather, those who thought up this scheme and are pushing it for all it’s worth, calculated that Malta had to offer something extra to make these people come here. Hence the citizenship offer.

We were rescued from going the whole hog with an offshore financial centre like Monaco, the Bermudas, etc., but here we are now being pushed down that slippery road once again. For all the government’s spin that it will all be above board, the simple fact remains that if we are as above board as the government makes it sound, very few people will think of coming here. Those who like our climate have already come. So too have those who like our way of life. It will only be those who have another reason, the anonymity that is being offered, who will be tempted.

We have been at the receiving end of brickbats calling us a tax haven when we were not. Once the passports start being issued, other governments, let alone the international media, will be scrutinising those who can wave a Malta-given EU passport at frontiers and benefit from an EU freedom of passage. It has been some time since we were called a rogue country but now we will be on our way to fully deserving it.

The MFSA has done a great job in weeding out the rogues and the corrupt. But giving out passports will not be within its remit and, on the contrary, will be within the remit of a foreign company that stands to gain one way or another from each application.

Regardless of everything one can say about the state of technology at the dockyard, it is a pity that it was allowed to close down.

Maybe its growth, and its reliance on the Maltese worker, did not produce the results of speedy growth we have seen in financial services, especially those unfettered by foreign supervision, but maybe, just maybe, that would have been better in the long term.

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