The Prime Minister’s hopes of resolving the debate on the MPs’ pay rise by the end of the month have been dashed because the first meeting of the House Business Committee is scheduled for February 1.
Sources said the first meeting would consist of a discussion on what is to be addressed in future meetings.
Lawrence Gonzi last week froze any backdated increases to the MPs’ honorarium until the matter is discussed in the parliamentary committee. This followed weeks of criticism.
Dr Gonzi had said he hoped the matter would be discussed this week and resolved as soon as possible, preferably by the end of the month.
However, Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat strongly objected to such a deadline, prompting Dr Gonzi to say the timeframe was not a “guillotine” but an acknowledgement that the issue should not be prolonged unnecessarily.
As things turned out, the earliest convenient date for the House Business Committee is on Tuesday and the brief agenda was yesterday published on the Parliament’s website. It listed three items: House business, honoraria of MPs and “other matters”.
The evening meeting will be presided by Speaker Michael Frendo. The government will be represented by Deputy Prime Minister Tonio Borg, Whip David Agius and backbencher Frederick Azzopardi. Labour Party Deputy leader Anġlu Farrugia and Whip Joe Mizzi will attend for the opposition.
So far, Labour has refused to make its strategy publicly known but according to sources the matter was finalised during a parliamentary group meeting on Monday, where a unified stand was agreed upon.
When contacted, a number of Labour MPs, even those said to have been in favour of a rise, indicated Labour did not have much room to manoeuvre.
The opposition has been vitriolic in its criticism of the “insensitive” way the government gave rises to ministers and MPs, so it is likely they would oppose any increases at a time when people were being asked to make sacrifices.
However, at just about €19,000 a year, the salary of MPs was barely enough to “make ends meet” in the case of some Labour MPs who did not have any other jobs, the sources said.
Therefore, it is possible the opposition will acknowledge that a rise is long overdue (having last been reviewed in the early 1990s) but that this must be done once the people start feeling the effects of a recovered economy.
The opposition is also likely to call for an independent mechanism by which the conditions of MPs would be reviewed regularly. Dr Gonzi alluded to such a mechanism in Parliament last week and former Prime Minister Alfred Sant has also called for a transparent mechanism to be set up.
Responding to Dr Sant’s criticism of how the government had ridiculed Parliament, even the Speaker had agreed with the suggestion of having a transparent process for such issues and said the controversy shed light on the importance of Parliament’s autonomy.
The government is expected to stick to its position for a rise to be granted on the basis of Dr Gonzi’s arguments that to attract the best people to politics, there could not be such a huge distinction between the public and private sectors.
However, sources said the discussions could be halted if Labour continued to insist on reopening the issue of whether ministers and parliamentary secretaries should be able to keep their honorarium.
Ministers have been asked to refund part of the increased honorarium they have been receiving since 2008 but Dr Gonzi has insisted on them keeping the honorarium itself as received by other MPs.
Interestingly, in November 1964, the issue of honorarium increases had also proved controversial. Nationalist Prime Minister George Borg Olivier had increased the honorarium by six per cent, prompting MP Mabel Strickland to ask for future rises to be brought up for parliamentary consultation and for any financial matters pertaining to the House not to be placed under the miscellaneous votes.