We are being inundated with scandals every single day of the week. The Daphne Project prevails. But not that scandals did not happen before. Only that, now, we just cannot keep up with them.

Obviously, most of these scandals are related to greed and money: Johnny-come-lately, young yuppie politicians who, not content with having had the honour and privilege of having been elected to represent the Maltese people are just intent on enriching themselves as quickly as possible.

And, therefore, you have them being paid extra for impromptu invented jobs, such as coordinating answers to parliamentary questions, becoming overnight Cottonera experts or commissioners for deregulation and whatnot.

In return, these politician lackeys will be there every Sunday fawningly clapping their hands off when pro-business Joseph Muscat announces that he is depriving the people of their cultural or historical heritage or when Gozo developer Adrian Delia is spouting his Kattoliċi u Latini inanities.

Then there are all the scandals linked to the sell-off of our country’s public assets, from Żonqor Point to St George’s Bay, from Dock No. 1 in Cospicua to St Luke’s Hospital, from Gozo General Hospital to White Rocks, from Delimara to the ODZ petrol stations (the list is endless), in order to make Sandro Chetcuti and his colleagues happy. Shady foreign characters stand to benefit too.

Maltese parliamentarians are not even satisfied with getting an uncapped pension after only five years and five months

But the story about Judge Philip Sciberras in The Sunday Times of Malta takes the biscuit: it made for some flabbergasting reading. The only problem is that it was factually incorrect since the judge is legally entitled to a parliamentary pension because he has actually spent seven years and nine months in Parliament and the minimum required is five years and five months to get a pension.

The real issue is whether it is right for a parliamentarian to get an uncapped pension after five years and five months when ordinary citizens work for a whole 40 years to get a measly €950 gross pension.

A woman recently informed me she has paid eight years of national insurance contributions and is not entitled to a single cent in pension. Is this equitable? What is even worse is that Maltese parliamentarians are not even satisfied with getting an uncapped pension after only five years and five months.

Indeed, our greedy parliamentarians, led by Muscat and Delia, tried to secretly change the law so they could get the pension pro rata... even with just a year in Parliament. Is this the socially-just Malta we want?

This has reinforced my impression – and not only mine – that greed rules supreme in this country. And, following the frank declarations by Luciano Busuttil, this impression has been strongly confirmed by the president of the ex-parliamentarians, Lino Debono, who said that since MPs give so much to the country and render themselves almost prostitutes (laħam mibjugħ is the Maltese term he used) to their voters, they should be compensated for their sacrifices.

It is quite rich for Debono to be dissatisfied with having an uncapped pension after only five years and five months and to continue insisting on extending this privileged parliamentary pension pro rata to those who served only one year.

Getting back to the judge, there is no doubt that, apart from his pension as a judge and his national insurance pension, he is legally entitled to a pension as an MP because he served over 65 months in Parliament.

The crucial question is: did he get a parliamentary pension related to the seven years and nine months he served or did he get more? Only he can answer the question by telling us what he receives as parliamentary pension. Will he tell us?

Just to give him an example, I receive a pension of €730 ca. gross (€530 net) a month for having paid 21 years contribution. What does he receive for his seven years and nine months in Parliament? I hope this is much, much less than what a person contributing to the national insurance fund for 21 years gets.

The respected poet and judge and all parliamentarians present and past should remember that many Maltese pensioners are fighting desperately for survival, receiving €500 to €700 a month. 

We therefore expect parliamentarians to act in a dignified way: not as an “almost prostitute”; that is only intent on enriching him/herself but as responsible lawmakers who work for true and honest social justice in our country.

Arnold Cassola is former Alternattiva Demokratika chairman and Secretary General of the European Green Party.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.