PAC meeting on Henley contract removed from parliament website

A public accounts committee scheduled for tonight at 6pm has been removed from the House of Representatives’ website, but PAC chairman Tonio Fenech is insisting that the committee meeting must be convened.

Fenech said the agenda for the PAC meeting had already been issued, even though the meeting’s announcement appeared struck off from the parliamentary website today.

“It’s a bad omen if this is the way the government is going to deal with us,” Fenech said after the Speaker of the House ruled on Tuesday that the PAC was empowered to discuss and be presented with a copy of the contract brokered between the government and IIP concessionaires Henley & Partners.

Henley are in charge of Malta’s sale of passports to the global rich for €650,000.

“The government whip has 39 MPs to choose from and delegate to attend the PAC, which needs one government MP for us to reach a quorum. Otherwise government would be trying to stop us from discussing the contract,” Fenech said.

The Prime Minister has already stated he will presented the Henley contract, save for commercially sensitive information.

Fenech expects to learn at what rates Henley won the concession to be the IIP’s main agent. “If the government does not do this, it would be sending a bad message on its transparency record.”