News • December 28 2003

Impulsive Gatt caught in numbers game

Austin Gatt’s comment in parliament that former Air Malta Chairman and Chief Executive and now candidate for Europe Louis Grech earned Lm56,000 a year, could have been correct if he had been clever enough to only refer to the last months of Mr Louis Grech’s tenure. Mr Grech has declared that he earned an average of Lm29,000 yearly for six years. However, in his last year under a Nationalist administration, when the principal aim of the PN government was arguably channelled to fight the deficit, Mr Grech, together with other senior staff at Air Malta, were awarded massive increases in their salaries and allowances.
Dr Gatt, the Minister for IT, has recently gone on an irreversible attack on the hike in salaries and exaggerated remuneration for government directors in government owned companies.
He chose to ignore the salaries of all the other chairmen but picked on Louis Grech, a person known for his links to the Labour party but who had been retained in his post by Nationalist minister Josef Bonnici with cabinet approval.
Nevertheless, Austin Gatt’s tirade may have caused irreparable damage to Louis Grech’s chances at the Europeans polls in June and done little to dent the Minister’s respectability. It does however continue to confirm that Austin Gatt’s impulsiveness will make him an unlikely candidate for a role that calls for diplomacy, pussyfooting and political expediency.