Former MP José Herrera has been earmarked to lead the board of the government’s golden passports agency.
Government sources said Herrera, who missed out on re-election earlier this year, is expected to be appointed non-executive chairman of Community Malta.
The agency runs the passports-for-cash scheme as well as all other national citizenship applications. It is run by CEO Joseph Mizzi and currently does not have a chairperson.
Contacted last week, Herrera told Times of Malta he had no comment to make at this stage.
A lawyer by profession, Herrera had served in different cabinet positions after Labour was first elected back in power in 2013. Most recently, he served as culture minister, having previously been responsible for the environment, and local councils before that.
He surprised many when he failed to make it back to parliament in the 2022 general election in March, and subsequently announced that he was quitting politics.
Herrera returned to his practice as a criminal defence lawyer and had at a point been among the names mentioned for the post of standards commissioner.
Malta’s lucrative golden passports scheme targets high net worth elite seeking easy and uninhibited access to the EU.
It generated more than €800 million between its launch in 2014 and 2020 and was celebrated by the Labour government as a major money maker.
However, profits from the programme are noticeably down, with passport agents – the professionals licensed to sell them – saying interest in the Maltese offering is on a steady decline.
The government is expecting to make €40 million less from passport sales next year, forecasting a drop in profits of two-thirds over just two years.
Earlier this year, the European Commission announced it would be taking Malta to court over the programme. Brussels referred Malta to the Court of Justice of the European Union over what it says is a violation of EU laws.
Malta remains the only state to have such a scheme after Bulgaria and Cyprus both scrapped similar programmes.
The government has said it believes it has the right to run the passport scheme but will let the court decide.
A decision is now expected next year.