MPs and those who filled important political offices in the past benefit from more than €2 million a year in special pensions under a controversial 1979 law, the Times of Malta has learnt.
The newspaper is informed that last year, the Treasury disbursed €2,032,359 in pensions under the Members of Parliament Pensions Act. The law provides for a ‘special’ pension over and above the ‘normal’ benefits falling under the national insurance contributory scheme, which all Maltese citizens are entitled to.
The special pension, amounting to an average €22,000 a year, varies from €40,540 for former presidents to a few hundred euros given to the widows of parliamentarians of the 1970s.
Former Cabinet ministers received a special pension of €31,866 last year while widows of ex-Cabinet members had a pension exceeding €26,000 a year. It did not matter whether MPs served as ministers for a few months or, say, a decade.
The law lays down that only those who sit in Parliament for at least two legislatures qualify for the special pension.
Sources pointed out that ex-politicians who received a full special pension as former ministers or parliamentary secretaries also qualified for the minimum pension under the national insurance scheme, amounting to an additional €500 a month.
The law provides for a special pension over and above the normal benefits
Former MPs who did not receive a full privileged pension, because they did not serve in Parliament long enough, retained the right to receive a higher pension than the minimum contributory pension in order to compensate, the sources added.
The Times of Malta is also informed that former politicians who occupied other posts, for example in European Union institutions, also received a full MP pension, over and above their EU benefits.
The list of MP pensioners includes sitting Cabinet ministers who have reached pensionable age, the sources said. Apart from their ministerial salary of €46,000, excluding allowances, they also receive a full MP pension as a minister, entitling them to an additional €31,000 annually.
The sources noted that while pensions under the Members of Parliament Pensions Act were not capped and kept rising each year at par with the salaries of ministers or holders of political office, ‘normal’ pensions could not exceed a set threshold.
The highest pension paid under the National Insurance Act stands at below €12,000 a year, less than one-third of what a former president gets.
The issue of privileged pensions is considered by many to be a hot potato, as it puts the political class in a special category.
Earlier this week, the government abandoned plans which, the sources argued, would have extended such privileges to a larger cohort of former politicians. The government presented a Bill proposing that the privileged MP pension be extended to former MPs who had served for just one legislature. It also proposed that the privilege also apply to those who had served as members of the European Parliament, thus considering their service in Brussels as being given also to the Maltese Parliament for pension purposes.
The government said that it was aborting its plans and accused the Opposition of withdrawing its earlier support for the proposed law.