The revelation made by The Sunday Times of Malta that veteran Labour MP Joe Debono Grech has been employed as a consultant to the Gozo Ministry was just the latest in a string of public sector appointments awarded to government backbenchers.
The pattern is the same. The information is leaked, never announced, and when contacted, the government is economic with the details of how it is using taxpayer money to beef up the salaries of its backbenchers.
In the case of Mr Debono Grech, the MP refused to say what his role at the Gozo Ministry will be and, significantly, referred the newspaper to the Office of the Prime Minister.
The Gozo Ministry would only say how much Mr Debono Grech will be paid but not what his work will consist of or if the job comes with any perks. If it is true that Mr Debono Grech’s role will be to stop public sector employees from skiving, then either the government managers in Gozo are redundant or the MP’s job is unnecessary.
When the Cabinet of the Nationalist administration gave itself a rise in the form of an honoraria, which it kept secret from colleagues and the public, there was an uproar and rightly so. The arguments in favour of the decision were sound and reasonable but the method was wrong and it made everything suspect. Then Opposition leader Joseph Muscat gained excellent political mileage from the event but, now in government, he is doing much the same and even worse.
The Prime Minister sent the wrong message only a few days after coming into office when it emerged he would be receiving a €7,000 annual allowance to use his own car for official purposes. The decision did not come across as very dignified and neither did the subsequent string of government appointments to the billboard faces, failed candidates and party insiders, in sheer disregard of Labour’s rallying cry Malta Tagħna Lkoll (Malta For All).
While it is correct that a government should have a free hand in appointing people in positions of trust, chosing serving MPs is an entirely different matter. Clearly, this flies in the face of the fundamental principle of the separation of powers, in this case between the legislative and the executive. It could well give rise to conflicts of interest.
Worse, when such public appointments of MPs are made in secret, they give rise, rightly or wrongly, to a public perception that MPs are there only to line their pockets.
The appointment of MPs to executive or consultative roles, if they should be made at all, are to be announced publicly along with a full breakdown of the remuneration paid, a clear justification of the post and the reasons why a legislator, and no one else, is deemed suitable for the job. The whole process must be transparent and should not be shrouded in secrecy.
When, earlier this month, it emerged that former Labour MP Maria Camilleri had turned down a €34,000 salary that came with her appointment as special envoy to Arab countries, there were many who praised her but no one, to date, has come forward to say he would emulate her example. Each time an MP receives a government appointment, he is getting a backdoor salary increase not unlike the PN honoraria so loudly denounced by Labour in Opposition.
Soon after former Italian premier Enrico Letta came into office, he cut his own salary and that of his ministers as he pushed through measures to reduce the deficit. Malta also has a problem with its deficit, however, the government appears to be doing the opposite with its MPs.