Ministers hold on to €6,000 increase
"Ministers are refunding the amount of honoraria that had been overpaid. This means that the net pay presently received by ministers is less than what used to be received in 2008" - OPM spokesman
Ministers and parliamentary secretaries have retained the €6,000 increase on duty allowance they awarded themselves in 2008.
Announcing a reshuffle in his Cabinet on January 6, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had also said that ministers and parliamentary secretaries would stop receiving the honoraria as MPs, indicating that their salary would be reversed to pre-2008 levels.
The issue has been protracting for four years and was characterised by lack of transparency throughout.
It now appears that the ministers have retained an additional €6,000 annual payment, resulting from the 2008 decision when the Cabinet approved new ministerial pay packets but not announcing them till 2010, even though the higher salaries started being paid to them immediately.
What ministers will stop receiving is their honorarium as MPs, which had been reduced early last year when Nationalist MP Jean Pierre Farrugia slammed the rises. The Prime Minister had succumbed to the pressure and got his ministers to make a partial refund of the honoraria.
Instead of €26,700, ministers started receiving €19,100 (the pre-2008 MP honorarium) and paying back the difference they had already pocketed through monthly instalments.
It had then emerged that the Speaker and the Opposition Leader were also originally entitled to the rise. However, while former Speaker Louis Galea had started receiving it shortly after the ministers did, his successor, Michael Frendo, was placed on the old pay. Joseph Muscat was also receiving the pre-2008 pay packets.
The Times had then reported that besides their honoraria (which was originally higher than that of other MPs), ministers also received an increase in their duty allowance, up from €2,329 to 20 per cent of their pay, which adds up to €8,414.
The Speaker and the Opposition Leader were denied such increase despite the Cabinet minutes saying they would receive it.
Dr Gonzi’s announcement on January 6 was made just under two months after the Auditor General described the whole saga as an “embarrassing experience” and a “good example of bad practice”.
After Dr Gonzi’s announcement, The Times asked the Office of the Prime Minister to give a breakdown of the new ministerial salaries.
Instead, the OPM said the ministerial package was in accordance with the details given to Parliament on January 19 last year, when Dr Gonzi had announced the partial refund of the increased honoraria.
Besides the reversal of the MPs honoraria “the other conditions (including the duty allowance) have not been reversed”, the OPM spokesman said.
“However, ministers are presently refunding the amount of honoraria that had been overpaid. This means that the net pay presently received by ministers is less than what used to be received in 2008.”