In times of financial crisis, with recession looming, people expect the government to feel their pain, or at least to pretend to do so. Those wage-earners who have to stretch their salary to cover spiralling water and electricity bills aren't going to take too kindly to politicians living it up, especially if they're living it up on public funds.

Which is why the news that former ministers, parliamentary secretaries, and the former Leader of the Opposition pocketed a cool €156,794 between them, by way of terminal benefits, went down like a lead balloon with the electorate.

This benefit was given to those parliamentarians who ended up without a ministerial post or function, other than that of Member of Parliament. The Office of the Prime Minister is reported as saying that the one-off payment was given in acknowledgement of the years of service given to the public, and - this is the best part - to ease those former ministers' transition into the working world. That's going to go down a treat with those workers who have been laid off, or who are working a four-day week.

I can just imagine them talking about it, queuing at the ETC offices or while attending retraining courses and worrying about how they're going to pay the mortgage and other bills.

"Heard about poor Jesmond? He's having a hard time at the moment. Austin's taken over his ministry and he's got to find a way to it..." "Yes, I heard about the 'So long' text message, the Prime Minister sent him. I wonder if that's when he told Jesmond about the €18,000 'Thank you'" coming his way" "Mind you, there are others getting it too. Louis Deguara, Tony Abela, Edwin Vassallo, Ninu Zammit, Michael Frendo, Francis Zammit Dimech - they didn't have to wait for Santa Claus this year."

"Alfred Sant received it as well. It just goes to show, that Santa isn't a Nationalist"..... And on it would go, the conversation between people who are a thousand times more deserving of a cash injection than politicians who aren't really out of a job.

That's right. The so-called 'terminal benefit' is a misnomer. It's not as if the recipients of the benefit bonanza have had all their sources of income or employment terminated. Baring Tony Abela, all of them have been elected to Parliament and receive parliamentary honorariums which are significantly higher than a minimum wage. So there's no living in penury there. You might argue a parliamentarian's pay packet is not commensurate with his workload and this makes public office an unattractive prospect.

This might be the case, but it would be far more transparent to overhaul the salary structure after due debate and after the matter has been given the necessary publicity. Instead, the information about the government's largesse had to be prised out of the Office of the Prime Minister by a persistent journalist. It wasn't hushed-up. It was just not mentioned - at least not before the election.

Which brings me to the most worrying aspect of the whole pay-out plan - and that's the way it subverts the democratic process and rewards underperforming politicians.

Let's face it, Lawrence Gonzi did not appoint the former ministers and parliamentary secretaries to his cabinet because he felt others would do the job more efficiently. The whole GonziPN campaign was based on the 'out with the old, in with the new' idea.

We were led to believe we would have a brand new cabinet with no baggage and no sub-stellar track record. What we were not told was the fact that we would be paying off those MPs who the Prime Minister no longer had faith in. Voters were not told the choice was really between a 'Dump 'em and Pay 'em' or 'Lump 'em and Keep the Cash'. Like the not-so-publicised meeting with the Armier shanty town residents, the terminal benefit payment came to light only recently.

I wonder if there are more instances of government largesse which still have to emerge in the coming weeks.

• I was talking about this with a Nationalist friend who was feeling very uncomfortable with the idea of people who are still in employment (in what is essentially a part-time job) being given a large amount of money, while others who are injured or desperately seeking work are trying to make ends meet.

"Well", she said, trying to justify the sorry business, "they gave it to Alfred Sant too". It's this kind of reasoning that makes me despair. The benefit pay-off is a questionable one because the taxpayer is giving a financial reward to parliamentarians who the Prime Minister has refused to promote. It's even worse because it comes at a time when we are being urged to save and scrimp and probably share the same bathwater.

The government is being criticised for giving a handout to people who don't really need it, not for discriminating on party lines. Also, including Sant among the list of recipients would mean the Labour Party could no longer cry foul. Clever move by the Gonzi cabinet. It's a pity the taxpayer will have to pay for it.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt