A €5 million charity donation from the Maltese passport sale fund, announced with pomp by former prime minister Joseph Muscat during a prime-time fundraising event on Xarabank in March 2018, has yet to be used.
According to the National Development and Social Fund (NDSF) 2019 annual report, the sum committed to Puttinu Cares “has not yet been utilised” by the NGO.
Puttinu Cares said in a post on its website last December that it was close to having half the amount needed to build apartments for cancer patients in central London.
Critics had slammed the former prime minister for using passport sale money and cancer patients for a “cynical PR stunt”.
Opposition MP Beppe Fenech Adami had accused Muscat of sending the message that in order to heal cancer patients, Maltese passports must be sold to “criminals and the corrupt”.
The fund has committed in excess of €90.5 million towards the well-being of society
Muscat’s former spokesman Kurt Farrugia had tweeted on the night of the donation that the prime minister’s former chief of staff Keith Schembri had “important input” in securing the donation.
The NDSF’s board is chaired by David Curmi, with Tumas Group’s financial director Ray Sladden as the deputy chairman.
The report says the fund has committed in excess of €90.5 million towards the “well-being of society” in areas ranging from health to social housing and sports. Social housing accounts for €60 million of this figure, with another €10 million going towards primary healthcare.
Muscat had announced the expanded €60 million social housing project in the lead-up to the MEP elections last May.
Further commitments of around €9 million were entered into by the Maltese passport sale fund in 2019 with “various voluntary organisations”, although no further details were given as the funding arrangements are expected to be finalised by mid-2020.
Of this €90.5 million in grants, €270,000 had been paid out by the NDSF in 2019, with the unutilised portion standing at €90.23 million in December 2019.
Losses from bank investments
The Maltese passport sale fund lost several million from its investments in Bank of Valletta and Lombard Bank, its accounts show.
The fund says it lost €2.5 million on its BOV investment and €2.7 million on the Lombard one.
The NDSF has in the past fended off accusations of conflicts of interests and opposition claims that the BOV investment fell outside of its social scope.
The fund’s governor is the CEO of MSV Life, which is 50% owned by BOV, and its CEO is Ray Ellul, who spent 36 years at BOV before taking over the fund’s running in 2017.
The NDSF acknowledged in its annual report that its local equity investments continued to underperform the stock market average, with this mainly being due to its “large exposure” in Lombard and BOV equities.
Overall, the fund turned around a €3.1 million loss across all local and foreign investments in 2018 to a €3.2 million profit the following year.
The fund boasts a cash balance at the Central Bank of Malta of €371 million.