Busuttil pledges not to employ ministers’ spouses without a public call

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil has pledged that a future Nationalist government will not employ ministers’ spouses without issuing a public call.

“For the sake of transparency and the principle of meritocracy, it is not right for a minister’s wife to be employed in the public service on an exaggerated salary,” Busuttil said in Parliament.

A parliamentary question to Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi on direct orders granted to ARMS and the Water Services Cooperation led to a heated debate over the employment of the minister’s wife Sai Mizzi Liang as a trade envoy to China and Malta’s consul-general to Shanghai on €13,000 a month.

In response to questions by Busuttil to provide a list of the work carried out by Sai Mizzi in two years of employment, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said that the Opposition leader will hopefully be able to witness the fruits of her labour “in a few weeks’ time”.  

The debate began when shadow health minister Claudette Buttigieg asked Mizzi why he had decided to sack a former police inspector from Enemalta but keep his wife on the public payroll.

On Monday, Mizzi ordered Enemalta to terminate the employment of Daniel Zammit, son of former police commissioner Ray Zammit, as a consultant to Enemalta’s Audit Division. He ordered his dismissal shortly after shadow justice minister Jason Azzopardi revealed in Parliament that he was granted the €60,000 less than a week after getting boarded-out of the police force on medical grounds.

Mizzi said that he ordered the termination of Zammit’s employment as it as the situation was “not what the government stands for”. Buttigieg and Busuttil then asked why Mizzi did not use the same measurements in the case of his own wife, who is earning €13,000 a month.

Mizzi responded that the government’s problem with the Zammit situation was the fact that he found employment with Enemalta so soon after getting boarded out of the police force by a medical board.

However, Busuttil pressed Mizzi on whether he considers anything wrong with his wife’s high salary. Here, Muscat stepped in on Mizzi’s behalf and said that ministers’ relatives found employment in the public service under the previous administration and that Sai Mizzi must not be judged for her relationships but for her results.  

“If Sai Mizzi’s work doesn’t yield results, then you will have every right to criticize her,” Muscat said. “However criticising her simply because she’s married to Konrad Mizzi is very cheap,” Muscat said.

Busuttil then questioned Muscat whether he found it acceptable for Sai Mizzi to get employed on the public payroll without a public call, upon which Muscat quipped that the government has the right to directly choose the people they consider he best fit for a job, as a previous government had appointed Busuttil as head of the Malta-EU Information Centre.

He added that previous Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had appointed his cousin to lead the Foundation of Medical Services without issuing a public call, and that Sai Mizzi is earning less than Richard Cachia Caruana had or than Busuttil had “when his company was granted €1 million in direct orders”.  

Busuttil accused Muscat of lying about the direct orders, and argued that Cachia Caruana was crucial in negotiating Malta’s EU accession.

“If it wasn’t for Cachia Caruana, you wouldn’t have been able to go to the EU summit yesterday,” Busuttil said.