Newbie Nationalist MP Claudette Buttigieg has asked a parliamentary question about the Prime Minister’s car. The answer she received (Joseph Muscat is going to use his own car and getting €7,000 a year for doing so) was greeted in much the same way as if it had been some explosive exposé of government ministers draining the state coffers by paying for bunga bunga parties. “That’s why PQs are important,” Claudette declared officiously on Facebook, “so we get to know what’s really going on”.
To have a penny-pinching fit now, because Labour politicians are following in the footsteps of their Nationalist predecessors, smacks too much of hypocrisy
Well I don’t want to pee on anyone’s parade, but we’ve known – or been able to know – what’s going on insofar as ministerial cars go, courtesy of Transport Minister Joe Mizzi. Unlike Buttigieg, Mizzi has never taken us to the heights of Eurovision ecstasy by swaying about on an artificial desert island and trilling on about desire and love. But he’s been quite busy on the parliamentary questions front, beavering away and asking how much the ministerial and prime ministerial cars cost the taxpayer.
As far back as 2005 (during Sitting number 255), Mizzi was inquiring about the annual income of the Prime Minister, Cabinet ministers and that of parliamentary secretaries. Never one to hold back when it comes to sniffing out government excesses, Mizzi asked if the Prime Minister and ministers were entitled to a car or more, and what was the annual expenditure for every car and the chaffeurs’ salary in each case.
The reply given by the Prime Minister of the time was quite interesting. It turns out that the Prime Minister, ministers and parliamentary secretaries are (or were) entitled to the use of two cars, not one – the official car and one for their personal use.
It proved difficult to track down the cost and expenses for Lawrence Gonzi’s official car, but something about the costs for the running and the use of his second car turned up in a later sitting. The service and maintenance expenses for that car (a Peugeot 406) for 2004 amounted to €6,342. Add to that the €793 spent on fuel, for a grand total of €7,135 paid for by the public for the running of a car for the private use of the Prime Minister.
The cost of the other car – the official one – are lost in the mists of time and in the sheaves of papers laid on the table of the House. But there are some interesting follow-up replies about the cost of the private cars of the ministers for that year.
For example, the hire and fuel costs for the Minister for Information Technology amounted to €8,635. That of the Minister for the Family and Social Affairs totted up to €9,769, whereas the bill for the personal car use of the Minister for Roads and Urban Development came in at €6,779.
Why the taxpayer should foot the bill for the minister’s private car use beats me. It stands to reason that a Prime Minister, ministers and other high-ranking employees should enjoy the use of an official car when on state business, but I can’t quite make out the justification for the taxpayer having to sponsor their trips to the cinema or the supermarket.
In any case, this practice does not seem to have worried Claudette Buttigieg or any other Nationalist exponents unduly. We didn’t hear a peep out of them then.
Nor did we see any eyebrows raised in penny-saving indignation when the Minister for Gozo informed Parliament that she (or rather the taxpayer) had rolled in a sleek BMW 320D for €37,970 in 2006. That must have been before the Jaguar joined the fleet of ministerial cars.
Again, we didn’t hear a word from Claudette and Co., when the ministers were lolling about in huge fuel-guzzling big boy toys instead of eco-friendly models.
Their indignation and sudden concern for the cost-effectiveness of the Prime Minister’s car facilities surfaced when we found out that Muscat would be using his car, and getting paid for it – in accordance with a scheme introduced by the previous Nationalist administration.
In their glee at having landed this blow on Muscat, the Nationalist Opposition MPs have forgotten to ask some other questions. They haven’t asked whether the Prime Ministers and his Cabinet ministers will continue the practice of having two cars – one for official purposes and one for private use. Nor have they inquired about the costs of this arrangement under the Gonzi administration and made a cost-comparison with present arrangements.
If it turns out that taxpayers are shelling more for the Prime Minister’s and ministers’ wheels, then MPs like Buttigieg would be right to berate Labour for its profligacy at the public’s expense.
But to have a penny-pinching fit now, because Labour politicians are following in the footsteps of their Nationalist predecessors, smacks too much of hypocrisy.
If we have to cut the fat, let’s do so, but please spare us from these bouts of self-righteousness. They’re extremely irritating.
cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt