There needs to be a gap between the old and the new Individuals Investors Program (IIP) scheme in order to ensure that Malta’s reputation is restored, the President of the Malta Chamber of Commerce, David Xuereb, told The Malta Independent.
“From a reputational aspect, we are insisting that there is a break of sorts which removes the old scheme, introduces a new one and reveals the differences between them and the lessons that have been learnt,” Xuereb told this newsroom on Wednesday.
About a month ago, the Chamber of Commerce released a report called “Ethical Business calls for Change – a manifesto for Good Governance”. This consisted of 60 recommendations for fixing Malta’s reputation after the political crisis at the end of last year.
One such recommendation was the temporary suspension of the IIP scheme.
“As the Chamber of Commerce, we have a working group of more than ten people from all areas of the industry who are worried about the reputation and insecurities that the IIP scheme brought with it and are also looking into ways of fixing this,” Xuereb said.
Speaking on Indepth a few weeks ago,Xuereb had revealed that the Chamber was setting up a meeting with the Minister of Home Affairs, National Security and Law Enforcement Byron Camilleri and Parliamentary Secretary Alex Muscat in order to discuss the scheme.
Asked by this newsroom for an update, Xuereb said that the meeting took place but the discussion is still underway. “These discussions are ongoing. There is another internal meeting taking place on Friday and, in the coming weeks, we will meet the ministry to coordinate our ideas together.”
“We understand that the government has recognised that there is a problem with the current scheme and the urgency of getting a new one,” Xuereb added.
He explained that “there has to be a gap between the old and new scheme and for want of a better idea, we recommended a suspension.”
He emphasised that this gap is something which the Chamber is insisting on and will keep doing so till the end.
Asked if this will ensure that the new scheme starts on a clean slate, Xeureb said; “Absolutely. It has to be read by people out there who have doubts about our reputation that what we had was doubtful and this has been acknowledged. We have to show them that that is something of the past and that the new scheme is a new product.”
He concluded by saying that the Chamber is looking for a product that is designed to bring value to the country in a different way, “maybe in the way it was supposed to be done in the first place.”
