The honoraria issue and the subsequent accusations and counter-accusations in Parliament between the Government and the Opposition have lifted the lid on the way MPs, their assistants and the whole governmental structure operate.

The revelation that parliamentary assistants in particular have been very lax in “reporting in for work” so to speak, has shocked taxpayers who keep seeing money being frittered away while they continue to struggle to make ends meet.

One of the assistants who has been singled out for his abysmal lack of attendance in Parliament is Nationalist MP Stephen Spiteri who yesterday came out with another charge – that other MPs simply “clock in and leave”.

Again, this kind of statement is appalling for the common citizen to hear, especially those in the private sector who have harboured the suspicion that those who work with governmental departments are simply draining the country’s coffers and not giving a decent day’s work in return for their pay cheque.

This cavalier attitude towards work and income by the top echelons of the country is unacceptable in a climate where people are facing pressures and uncertainty on a daily basis. However, it also points to a culture which is often shrugged off and taken for granted: That those who work ‘with the government’, have jobs for life. Ask the man in the street about those who work ‘mal-gvern’ and the general perception is that they need not worry about being accountable and that, no matter what happens, no one would ‘dare’ fire an unproductive employee within the civil service. This is a culture which has become so ingrained in the Maltese psyche that we even make jokes about it: How a person who goes through life completely laid back and with no stress probably enjoys a cushy job with the government. The problem is that this is really no laughing matter.

This is not to say that all government employees are coasting by with a bare minimum of productivity as they clock in and clock out – but that is the perception, especially when a member of the public needs a document or a service from a government department and sees with his own eyes people lolling about, chatting about their personal lives, drinking coffee and reading newspapers on the job.

A bloated civil service has always been the albatross around any administration’s neck and while the public habitually moans and complains about the lack of real efficiency, the situation becomes even more unfair when summer rolls around. Half days for civil servants are seen as the last straw by most people, and while it is true that the hours are made up in winter, most people in private enterprise would be only too willing to have the same arrangements if they were offered to them. Obviously, however, it is not feasible or financially viable to run a private company like that.

And yet that is how the country is being run, it seems. People simply punch in and collect their cheque at the end of the month. No one has any sense of guilt about doing this, neither the anonymous lowly-paid clerk nor those in Parliament – and we are paying for it.