Justice Minister Owen Bonnici, who is responsible for the cash-for-passports scheme, would not say what an Identity Malta employee receiving almost €120,000 a year was doing.

According to a notice in The Malta Government Gazette, earlier this year the Justice Ministry gave a direct order of €119,600 for an Identity Malta consultancy contract to Elaine Malia.

Until a few months before, Ms Malia formed part of Henley & Partners, the international firm which devised the passports scheme and was given a concessionaire contract to operate it.

Asked in Parliament to say whether the government had directly employed the services of a Henley & Partners official, Dr Bonnici told Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi Ms Malia was now an Identity Malta official. However, he could not say what her precise work consisted of: her duties were “of a confidential nature”.

Apart from the confidential details, Ms Malia, who Dr Bonnici said had a lot of experience in the handling of passport schemes, also gave training to other Identity Malta staff and made sure the unit she worked for followed international procedures.

Minister Bonnici would not say what her work consisted of, because her duties were of a confidential nature

The government said last week the amount of cash generated from the sale of passports had reached €300 million.

It is not known how many passports have been sold to date, although the government said no more than 1,800 would be sold.

Applicants are also allowed to buy passports for their dependents, including spouses, children and their parents.

A Maltese passport sells at €650,000 in addition to investment obligations such as the rental of a property in Malta and an investment in bonds. The passports for dependents can be acquired at €25,000 each.

Although originally, Henley & Partners, which also manages similar schemes in the Caribbean, was given an exclusive contract to act as agent for the scheme, the government then allowed Maltese agents to take part and act as go-betweens for the buyers and Identity Malta.

In the first year of operation, the scheme attracted mostly citizens from former Soviet republics.

ivan.camilleri@timesofmalta.com