Bill amending Citizenship Act approved for committee stage

The House of Representatives will be meeting again tomorrow morning to discuss the bill amending the Maltese Citizenship Act at committee stage.

Parliament this evening voted after the second reading. The bill passed its second stage with 38 votes in favour and 29 against.

The vote was taken following Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia's winding up.

In a barb at the Opposition, Mallia said the speakers had acted like "parrots, repeating ad nausea the same arguments". The comment generated much shouts from the Opposition's side... and laughter from the government benches.

According to the minister, it was not true that the public was against the Individual Investor Programme and had in reality understood the wealth such a programme could bring to the company.

Mallia insisted that the minister responsible from citizenship had always had the discretion to accept or refute citizenship applications.

On the Opposition's call for investment, Mallia said the government "respected" such an opinion but it also had the "right" to disagree.

"The Opposition has no right to force us to do what it is proposing. Doing so would only translate in arrogance," he said, fending off accusations that government had steamrolled over the opposition.

Mallia said €650,000 per application was good enough investment for the government. "For the Opposition, such a figure was peanuts. I'm not surprised, because as the previous prime minister used to say, 'money is no problem'," he said.

The minister insisted that the IIP would attract high net worth investors. "In simple words, very wealth people."

He said that the Maltese government was confident in the ability of the Maltese to make good use and expand the money which IIP beneficiaries will be investing in the country.

Mallia rubbished suggestions that the IIP would mar Malta's reputation and went on to question whether the Opposition's stand had anything to do with the firm represented by Nationalist MP Francis Zammit Dimech failing to win the tender.

He said that the government was "not afraid of the weak pen of bloggers, collaborators of the PN who try to instill fear in the public".

Concluding, Mallia said the IIP would serve to boost the financial services sector.

"I am convinced that history will look back at the Nationalist Party as the party who yet again lost an opportunity to work with the government," he said.