Retired Malta Electricity Board staff say time is running out for them as they make yet another demand to be granted pension rights similar to those enjoyed by government employees, as laid down by a 40-year-old Cabinet decision.
All it needs is the Prime Minister’s signature
“We are being robbed every month. There are 265 of us eligible for these pension rights... about 73 have already passed away, while four are still in employment and might retire soon,” Carmel Bugeja, 61, told The Times.
“All we are asking for is that we are treated like our fellow colleagues. We are being discriminated against, and the Government is morally bound to ratify the decision taken by Cabinet 40 years ago.”
“All it needs is the Prime Minister’s signature,” fellow ex-employee Anthony Gatt Hampton, 67, added.
In 2005, 93 former employees filed a judicial protest against the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, the Minister for Investment, Industry and Information, and Enemalta Corporation. They claimed they were being discriminated against and held the authorities liable for any damages they might suffer.
Seven years later, Mr Justice Silvio Meli condemned the failure of every Maltese Prime Minister since 1970 to ratify a Cabinet decision that would have given them these pension rights.
However, the judge dismissed the employees’ request to implement the Cabinet decision because more than 30 years had passed between the day the decision was made and the court case was filed.
The plaintiffs filed an appeal soon afterwards. In the meantime, they are hoping the decision will be ratified as they feel they are running out of time.
Mr Gatt Hampton and Mr Bugeja said they had not filed the protest before because they had always hoped some prime minister would sign the decision.
The employees had joined Enemalta when it took over MEB’s role.
The board had formed in 1963 and six years later, the Cabinet, led by George Borg Olivier, decided that all MEB employees were to be awarded a pension on the same lines as that of civil service employees.
This decision was then confirmed in March 1970.
But the law provided that such Cabinet decision had to be approved by the Prime Minister – and none has yet approved it.
This, the court said last year, was worthy of condemnation and was inexplicable.
The men expressed frustration that many financial promises were being made by both parties during this electoral campaign but their financial losses were being ignored.
The first former employee to be denied these pension rights retired in 1979. The plaintiffs include managers, clinical staff, industrial staff and engineers.