Finance Minister says MPs’ asset register is ‘lousy’

The declaration of assets for Malta's members of parliament is "lousy", and the salary being paid to ministers is "insulting", Finance Minister Edward Scicluna has told MaltaToday in an interview.

As an MEP for the socialists and democrats, Scicluna was paid close to €90,000 a year before he decided to run for elections in March 2013, after which he was appointed finance minister, with a salary that is just less than half his MEP salary.

"It was very unfortunate that the government salaries increase happened the way it did," Scicluna said, referring to the way Lawrence Gonzi increased ministerial salaries and topped them up with the parliamentary honoraria back in 2008 without making it public.

The matter now is expected to be revisited, but not before Labour completes its first legislature. "The matter to be discussed is how much should be paid: if this is determined by an independent body, it could be argued and discussed at length and probably solved, something that will probably happen only in the second legislature, if re-elected," Scicluna said.

"From my position in life, I can afford giving five years of service to the country without counting the euros... but obviously I am insulted at the salary a minister gets," Scicluna told MaltaToday when pointing out how government chief executives are paid standard salaries of €65,000.

"Cabinet salaries must be reviewed in a proper and pre-announced manner. If we want to attract good people to government, if we want a new generation of good people to govern us, we need to pay higher salaries. They needn't be higher than those in the private sector. Even members of the Obama administration left the private sector for a cut in their salaries to serve their country."

Equally, Scicluna says that ministers should also give better declarations of the assets they hold, but says that the system as employed by the House of Representatives is "lousy" and that he is not - as estimated by MaltaToday - the second-highest earning minister of the Muscat government.

"The declarations as they stand are lousy, they are not clear. We need something clear, and there is room for improvement. The European Parliament's declaration has guidelines. In our case, if someone declares they hold shares, the question is at what value should they be declared: their market value or the value at which they were bought? It's so uneven, it is unfair."

High-earning ministers like Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia declared such sums as €500,000 in cash, while Gozo minister Anton Refalo held over 22 properties, while declaring a small income. But unlike the declaration system in countries like France, Maltese ministers do not need to quantify their assets, which is why properties do not get valued and therefore give an incorrect picture of the wealth held by government ministers.