While it is blatantly obvious that the government is seeking to extend the Individual Investor Programme for another round of international humiliation to maintain its bragging rights over budgetary balances and economic success, one honestly has to wonder exactly why the Opposition is pussyfooting around the issue.

Given the Opposition’s previous outright and most forceful resistance to the scheme, the party now appears to be rudderless in the face of the government’s latest bid to refresh the scheme for yet another round.

The issue may have less to do with any of the party’s people being engaged in the plying of passports and more to do with leaving itself open to criticism from the public at large. The IIP, after all, is certainly raking in the cash and the government and its acolytes could have a veritable field day against the PN for turning away such easy money.

The issue appears to be between the national interest in monetary terms and the national interest in terms of citizenship and ‘being Maltese’. It is a struggle between money and national pride, where the government has leaned towards the former at the expense of the latter.

But just how ‘easy’ is the money that is being made? It may yield an instant reward but the eventual ramifications could hit the country hard, and not only in reputational terms.

The International Monetary Fund has very clearly advised the government to wean itself off the IIP, warning that it must not become overly reliant on the Programme. As is common knowledge, the much-lauded budgetary surplus registered over this last year came as a result of IIP revenues.

And it seems from the most recent report on Malta by the IMF that the government has inadvisably hitched its medium term plans for economic success to the IIP wagon. The IMF, which is pretty much as independent as one can get, has warned in no uncertain terms that the fiscal targets the government is forecasting are dependent partly on IIP revenues, which it correctly pointed out, ‘are temporary and hard to predict’.

As such, the IMF urged the government to look elsewhere for revenue and to identify further structural measures would put the fiscal position on a stronger and more reliable footing. In fact, it warned that ‘slow progress in addressing the remaining structural weaknesses could undermine growth prospects and erode competitiveness’.

The report published this week, in fact, points out that the fiscal challenges of the IIP ‘include achieving a prudent management of the inflows, which might be volatile and unsustainable’.

It also warns that macro-financial risks could be triggered by a rapid influx of housing investment, leading to property market bubbles, adding that ‘reputational and money laundering risks may arise if the due-diligence procedure is not sufficiently rigorous’.

Identity Malta has made it amply clear that the second round of the scheme will go ahead whatever the case and it even reminds that the extension was in the government's electoral manifesto.

As matters stand, the original round of the IIP had been endorsed by the European Commission but questions to the EC on its opinion of the government’s second round have so far remained unanswered. As such, it appears evident that Brussels may have a problem or two with widening the scheme’s scope.

The programme so far has been irregularly regulated. No matter how much the government may shower praise on its due diligence, it is a well-known fact among many who are renting out properties under the scheme, that the tenants rarely visit the country, let alone live here for an effective year before being awarded citizenship.

And the government still insists on attempting to disguise the names of IIP citizenship buyers among the ranks of those other people who are granted Maltese citizenship through traditional channels.

The obvious ploy, which can be worked around with a little rudimentary IT knowhow, is to disguise those who purchased their passports: whole families are rarely given Maltese citizenship in one fell swoop, except for those qualifying under the IIP. 

The names of those purchasing citizenship are not secret, they are just a little more difficult to identify, and rest assured that the press will uncover most of the names with or without the need to de-alphabetise and re-alphabetise the list.

But in the face of all this, the Opposition’s new leadership is still to take a stance on the IIP’s extension. The party’s Deputy Leader for Parliamentary Affairs David Agius recently told this newsroom that it is still discussing what its position on the matter should be.

The Opposition is clearly still gauging the national sentiment before taking a stance. But whatever the case, the Opposition needs to find the gumption to continue opposing what effectively constitutes a slap in the nation’s face. It must take a decision as it knows very well that it cannot please everyone all the time by simply sitting on the citizenship fence.