Ministers three years ago increased their yearly pay packet by an additional €6,000 over and above their controversial "double pay", The Times can reveal today as we outline the full extent of the raise for the first time.

Besides granting themselves an enhanced MP's honorarium on top of their ministerial salaries, ministers also decided to give themselves a higher "duty allowance". This went up from €2,329 to 20 per cent of their salary, which amounts to €8,414.

The Cabinet took these decisions on May 5, 2008 but failed to give the taxpaying public information about how their new salaries were broken down until January 2011. Even then, they refrained from explaining a crucial detail: how their duty allowance had gone up.

This means that, contrary to what the Nationalist Party had claimed in January, the actual increase in the weekly pay packets of Cabinet members is not €367 but just under € 500.

It has also emerged that the Opposition Leader, who is paid by the State, never received the higher allowance, even though the new system was immediately implemented for the Prime Minister, ministers , parliamentary secretaries and former Speaker Louis Galea. 

This long-running saga has already proved highly embarrassing for the government, which came under heavy criticism for failing to be transparent about its ministers' income increases when it awarded them the honorarium, to which only MPs with no ministerial duties were previously entitled. It had raised the size of the honorarium only to backtrack in the face of an outraged public, with ministers now being forced to gradually refund the increase. Pressed for clear explanations over the past few days, the government has finally confirmed that the ministers' duty allowance of 20 per cent of their pay replaced an expense allowance which used to amount to €2,329 (Lm1,000) for ministers, parliamentary secretaries, the Speaker and the Opposition leader. The Prime Minister used to receive €5,823 (Lm2,500).

"It is pertinent to note that today's Cabinet is smaller than the previous one. A reduction in the size of the Cabinet resulted in a smaller total secretariat staff complement and also a reduction in the number of permanent secretaries and their staff complement," a spokesman for the Office of the Prime Minister said in defence of the decision.

The government has always argued that the changes proposed in May 2008 were intended to "address the anomaly" that all MPs employed with the government are allowed to receive their salary and the honorarium while members of the Cabinet received only their salary.

Clues about this duty allowance increase were given in January, when the government tabled parts of the minutes of the May 2008 Cabinet meeting.

Back then, The Times had asked the OPM whether the duty allowance of 20 per cent of the ministers' salary was new and whether it had been implemented from 2008. But an OPM spokesman dodged the questions and simply said that ministers and parliamentary secretaries tabled a full declaration of their income in Parliament annually. However, this declaration does not give a clear breakdown of their salaries and is compounded with other income, such as bank interest.

Cabinet members this week declared their income and assets for last year. However, no breakdown was given of their salaries.

(The Times)