Public Investments Minister Austin Gatt, perhaps unwittingly, put his finger on a raw nerve of Maltese democracy the other day when he told parliament that “the public sector could not continue to recruit the best persons for top management positions, if their salaries were not commensurate with their responsibilities”.
Elaborating further, he is reported to have said that “private companies that turned over Lm20 to Lm 40 million a year paid their CEOs Lm30,000 to Lm40,000 etc” and that “the way things are currently being done in the public service was making it increasingly more difficult to recruit good people to top management jobs.”
He insisted that excellence could not be bought for peanuts and feet should be kept solidly on the ground. “Finding the right balance between responsibility and remuneration was a must,” he thundered.
Later on during the same session, he shifted the argument, extending it to the civil service.
“While the salaries of certain levels in the public sector, such as clerical and middle management grades, were better than the private sector, there were large discrepancies at the higher levels,” he remarked.
Dr Gatt made specific references to the salaries paid to government lawyers, architects and civil engineers and asked: “How could the government expect to attract the best Maltese administrative minds by paying a permanent secretary just Lm12,000 when they could graduate MBA or PhD and join private industry?”
Does this amount to a veiled attempt to set the ball rolling, in anticipation of yet another salary revision in the public sector, focused on the higher echelons, and excluding the “clerical and middle management grades” who fare better than their counterparts in the private sector?
It bears pointing out that, in all democratic countries where the market is free and unfettered, CEOs of really big business concerns earn much more than top civil servants (and ministers).
In Malta, the government has followed this principle regarding top posts at certain public entities, and Dr Gatt has to explain if this principle has not been fairly applied to all public entities and, if so, why? He may also like to investigate why the remuneration of architects, lawyers and civil engineers in the whole public sector must be “subordinated” to fit within that of the civil service hierarchy, in which case he may draw his own conclusions.
There is, moreover, another consideration as to why, in a competitive environment, the remuneration of senior public sector personnel is lower than that of their private sector counterparts.
Public sector personnel enjoy the added advantages of career security and other perks, such as summer half-days, which private sector employees do not.
I submit, with respect, that the discussion in Parliament did not go to the heart of the matter.
The real question is whether Malta’s politicians and public opinion have matured enough to enhance the democratic process, making it possible for the system of government and of Parliament to function with the desired efficiency.
The process of government has become decidedly more onerous, more technical and certainly much more sophisticated.
Malta has to put its best foot forward on the international plane and fulfil its obligations. The onus is on the executive and the legislature, whose business is to create the right environment for Malta’s productive forces and, in particular, to find more space for Maltese initiative to be exercised.
One obvious necessity is to give more power to the elbow of the executive and to maximise the efficiency of parliamentary machinery. Parliament has to keep an overview on the executive, and parliamentarians cannot be expected to do their job as proficiently as one would be entitled to expect, unless they have more time for parliamentary work.
In other words, Parliament can no longer be considered a part-time job in modern-day circumstances. Members of Parliament have to be at least semi-professionals, with binding commitments to involve themselves in standing and select committees of the House and to assume a fair share of the burden.
Seen in this perspective, the time to review parliamentary and ministerial salaries is overdue, on the assumption that salaries should be commensurate with increased responsibilities, and capable of attracting to the political class competent and versatile candidates, qualified to cope with technological, administrative and other complicated problems that need to be efficiently tackled in the service of the nation.
Until and unless we reach that stage, our system will continue to “stink at the head”, as it were, and our democracy will continue to be handicapped by its clay feet.
This topic merits priority of consideration, not least to help insulate politicians from the temptation of corruption.
The case for action can hardly be logically resisted when the chairmen of some public entities, and other high officials recruited from outside the government service, have been offered handsome salaries for work which involves less responsibility than that of ministers.
It is futile to expect heroic acts from politicians in an age when working politicians are not people of independent or substantial private means.
In any case, the principle of the rate for the job is one that bears due consideration in a democratic society
The issue is, above all, one of efficiency. It is also an issue of national dignity, particularly in the EU forum. Having to face it at a time when public finances are under strain make it much more of a formidable challenge.
Is Maltese political opinion mature enough to face the issue?
Dr Michael Asciak was man enough to raise the issue squarely in the House.
Will parliament shirk the issue?
Our running away from the problem does not mean that the problem will run away
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