Judge Lino Farrugia Sacco has been given a €30,000 package as the first chairman of the Lands Authority.
Information provided to this paper by the regulator shows that Judge Farrugia Sacco will be paid a salary of €18,000 and an annual allowance of €12,000.
Judge Farrugia Sacco has twice been recommended for impeachment by the Commission for the Administration of Justice on accusations of breaching the judiciary’s code of ethics.
The judiciary watchdog found the judge, prima facie, guilty of misbehaviour for ignoring its direction to step down from the post of president of the Maltese Olympic Committee.
READ: Rebuked judge to chair Lands Authority
Two impeachment motions filed against him by former prime minister Lawrence Gonzi in 2013 and by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat in 2014 fell through when he retired from the Bench in August 2014.
Earlier this year, the Opposition criticised his appointment
Earlier this year, the Opposition criticised his appointment, arguing that it would make the Lands Authority “an extension of the Prime Minister’s influence”.
The new regulator was set up to replace the Land Department in the wake of the Gaffarena scandal, which involved the transfer of a property in Valletta and led to the resignation of then planning parliamentary secretary Michael Falzon in 2016.
The new lands watchdog is already facing challenges, as a number of its employees were irked by an assimilation process held to integrate staff of the former Land Department into a new salary structure.
The Times of Malta reported this week that while almost all staff members were included in the new structure according to their former designation, an exception was made in the case of one employee with known political connections.
The employee in question was placed at least three levels above her former grade, thus getting an indirect promotion and thousands of euros more in salary.
The Opposition initially announced it would not nominate a representative on the Lands Authority’s board but changed its mind and nominated Ryan Callus.
The regulator’s chief executive officer is Carlo Mifsud, a former Labour Party candidate, who, Mr Callus has claimed, was chosen over more qualified candidates who had worked at the Land Department for several years.
Then planning parliamentary secretary Deborah Schembri insisted, however, that Mr Mifsud had been chosen by an independent panel and his appointment had nothing to do with his political history.