MPs employed with the state: PQs reveal salaries

At least nine serving MPs are currently employed by the State, a series of parliamentary questions has revealed. The answers provided by ministers to the questions posed by Labour MP Luciano Busuttil – who himself earns a handsome €44,880 for his role as MP and head of the Malta Sports Council – show various incongruencies on the part of MPs' employment records.

Opposition MP Kristy Debono has not shown up for work at the Malta Gaming Authority since June, a reply to a parliamentary question has revealed. 

Debono, the authority’s manager of information analysis, earns up to €34,000 a year but she has only completed eight hours of the 1,016 working hours she was expected to put in this year.

The MP’s maternity leave is excluded from the hours she was expected to work in 2015 and the information tabled by economy minister Chris Cardona says that Debono was expected to return to work on 22 June.

According to Cardona, the authority accepted the opposition MP’s demand to work from home, which would have seen Debono complete 50% of her working hours through teleworking.

But the MP has not shown up at the authority’s office or completed any work through teleworking since June, meaning that Debono only completed 1% of the working hours due in 2015.  

The MP was engaged by the authority as a control officer in 2004, some nine years before her election to Parliament in 2013. The information tabled in parliament adds that the MP only fulfilled 34% and 36% of her working hours in 2013 and 2014.

Cardona added that the authority has no information on whether Debono was engaged through a public call in 2004.  

No attendance record for opposition whip 

Cardona also provided information on opposition whip David Agius, who is employed as a manager at the Malta Freeport Corporation, run by Labour candidate Aaron Farrugia. 

Apart from his MP’s salary, Agius earns a basic salary of €30,424 topped up by a €4,800 allowance and a 10% performance bonus. 

Agius was engaged by the corporation as a clerk in 1990 and was then promoted to Assistant Manager in 2009 and Human Resources manager in 2012. Following Labour’s return to power, Agius was appointed as EU funds and compliance manager in September 2013.

The minister said that the corporation has no information about Agius’s original engagement, because the MP’s human resources file only includes information from 2004 onwards.  

Cardona added that he could not provide information about Agius’s attendance record because Agius does not use the palm reading system to record his attendance. 

Teleworking-class hero

Unlike Debono, her colleague on the opposition benches, Robert Cutajar is a fan of teleworking, with the former Mellieha mayor working four days a week from home. 

Cutajar, who was previously employed within former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi’s secretariat, earns up to €22,000 as a full-time employee of the Animal Welfare directorate, also apart from his parliamentary earnings of slightly over €20,000.

The answer tabled by environment minister Leo Brincat shows that Cutajar is only present at the directorate’s office one day a week, with the rest of the work completed at home.

Moreover, Cutajar is excused from work to perform parliamentary duties according to the Public Service Management Code. After working in Gonzi’s secretariat, Cutajar was appointed as Officer in Grade 9 by the Public Service Commission in 2010. 

Healthy jobs for opposition MPs

Health minister Konrad Mizzi provided information on two opposition MPs, Clyde Puli and Mario Galea, who are currently employed by departments and authorities falling under his responsibility. 

Over and above his MP’s honoraria, Puli earns €35,549 in his role as PR and communications manager at the Foundation for Medical Services, which the MP joined in 1999. The minister did not provide any information on Puli’s attendance record. 

Galea is employed as a senior staff nurse and earns €21,507 a year. 

Another health services employee is former MP Joe Cassar, who this month resigned his seat following MaltaToday’s revelations on his links with businessman Joe Gaffarena.

Following the 2013 election Cassar was employed as a consultant psychiatrist with the Mental Health Services, where he earns up to €52,701 a year. 

Another opposition MP earning a government pay cheque is Toni Bezzina, who is paid some €30,000 in his role as senior architect within the transport ministry. 

Apart from his parliamentary remuneration and his transport ministry job he has held since 2012, Bezzina also has a private practice.  

Finance minister pays for MP’s advice 

Government jobs are not exclusive to opposition MPs. Labour backbencher Charles Mangion is paid over €22,000 to advise the finance minister. The former minister and Enemalta chairperson acts as Chair of the Financial Services Working Group (FSWG) and Advisor on financial services issues related to the FSWG.

Although the contract does not specify the number of hours Mangion is expected to put in, he is provided with free telephony, mobile and internet and benefits which are not already included within Parliamentary remuneration. 

Another government backbencher earning an additional salary is architect Charles Buhagiar who earns more than current ministers despite being excluded from the Cabinet. Apart from managing a private architecture firm, the MP serves as chairman of the Building Industry Consultative Council, for which he earns €33,000. Moreover, Muscat has appointed Buhagiar as his consultant on large projects. 

17 MPs are also employed at university and other educational institutions but the information provided by education minister Evarist Bartolo does not include names. 

Another unnamed MP is provided with a vehicle for his part-time role with the Sport Promotion Unit within the Gozo ministry. 

A number of current MPs, including Claudio Grech, Stephen Spiteri and Claudette Buttigieg previously held government jobs while former MP Jesmond Mugliett earns €16.29 per hour in his role of Project Management Adviser at WasteServ. 

Jobs for the boys and girls 

The disproportionate number of opposition MPs currently in government jobs might have more to do with the government’s generosity than with the opposition’s greed. 

Last year, a MaltaToday report showed that the 39 Labour MPs are costing the taxpayer more than €1.6 million a year, a substantial increase of €472,439 when compared to the previous Nationalist parliamentary group in 2012. 

A comparison of salaries paid in 2012 and those that were paid in 2014, shows that the Labour parliamentary group is 30% more expensive than the previous government MPs. 

Following the 2013 general election, Muscat had described the appointment of parliamentary assistants by his predecessor as a “waste of time” and defended the appointment of MPs to government boards as a move to “bring Parliament closer to the people.” 

While the ministerial code of ethics stipulates that Cabinet members must stop practising their private professions, many Labour backbenchers have ended in a better financial position than ministers and parliamentary secretaries because they can still practise their profession while earning two or three extra salaries. 

With an unprecedented majority of nine seats, Muscat went on to appoint a large Cabinet while nine backbenchers were appointed to government boards or as consultants, with at least two of them being better paid than Muscat himself.

Roles are expected to be reversed once the opposition wins power, however following the government’s decision to remove legal bans on the appointment of MPs to government boards, PN leader Simon Busuttil said he opposes the appointment of MPs to executive roles on government entities.