In Opposition, Labour drummed the good governance concept and made much political mileage out of the story of the honoraria paid to Ministers. Of course, this measure had to be seen in relation to the appointment of the smallest cabinet in years and also in the context that government back-benchers and members of the Opposition received both a job salary and a parliamentary honorarium. Back then, a back-bencher who was promoted to government immediately lost the parliamentary honorarium. The Opposition members chose to conveniently forget this undeniable fact. Marie Louise Coleiro Preca’s amnesia went as far as forgetting to declare one of the two salaries she received when in Opposition, as she and every other Member of Parliament is obliged to do on a yearly basis to the same House of Representatives. Nonetheless, the Opposition’s snapping at the heels was so persistent and so well-organised that the Government felt it could only beat a retreat. Dishonest or not, Labour’s negative campaign was effective and the consequences are now very well known.

Waivers and part-time Ministers

Having now been elected to office, Labour seems to have lost all its previous scruples. The size and population of the country has not changed since March, but governing seems to require more hands on deck. The cabinet is so large that there are enough Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries to field two 11-a side football teams and a referee.

Over five years, cabinet salaries will cost €130 million, far higher than the increase in the honoraria proposed by its predecessor. Not only that, but more people are now employed, at higher grades and salaries and in more secretariats, than previously. Total costs are estimated to rise by 71 per cent. Had this money gone towards improved and better governance, it might not have mattered so much. But it did not.

And then there is the Prime Minister’s waiving of the Code of Ethics for a Minister to pursue his lucrative profession, which meant that Ministers under Labour can now be allowed to work on a part-time basis, when full-time Ministers dedicated solely to their ministerial duties is the least our country deserves.

Pay Packages for Government Back Benchers

It’s all politics, with a very small ‘p’. Muscat, an expert on taking advantage of divisions and resentments on the Government backbench during the last legislature, now wants to ensure that the same thing does not happen to him and is trying to keep his back bench as happy as possible by handing them the goodies. The law has been changed so that back-bench MPs can also sit on and chair government boards. So in effect, a Government MP who has pontificated about Ministers’ so-called double salary in the last few years will be getting three pay packages instead: his salary, the honorarium as a Member of Parliament and the honorarium that goes with the chairmanship position. The chairmanship position might also entitle the MP to a chauffeur-driven car and other freebies.

The Minister’s wife and other family members

The latest in Joseph’s Labour’s loss of scruples is the appointment of the Energy Minister’s wife to a public sector post that pays €8,000 a month without being required to answer a call for applications or sit for a competitive interview. So the same Prime Minister who complained so vehemently about the previous administration Ministers’ increase of €2,000 per month in their take-home pay, had no scruples in allowing his own Minister’s family to take home a further €2,000 a week from the public coffers.

The Minister complained that this is all a distraction from his political achievements in the sector, as if lowering the price of petrol by a whopping six cents or keeping the price of LPG stable (stable after it had been raised, by the way) should have kept us in thrall and mesmerised by the Minister’s ‘performance’ for months on end.

By far more interesting, are the details that are coming out. After Malta Enterprise issued a press release defending the appointment, its directors revealed that they had known nothing about it. The official “explanation” soon followed: this was not an employment but the appointment of an “envoy”. “Official explanations” change shape every time some new detail comes out.

In the meantime, we are also becoming accustomed to the appointment of Ministers’ and Member of Parliament’s relatives to public entity boards such as the recent appointments on the Police Board and the Housing Authority.

And they will not shut our mouths

The problem with the turning of sensitive posts such as that of Commander of the Armed Forces and the Commissioner of Police into political appointments is basically one of trust.

So when the case against Malta’s former EU Commissioner was dropped, following a change in Police Commissioner, eye-brows were immediately raised. When former Police Commissioner Rizzo said in court that he and his team of investigators wanted to arraign the EU Commissioner because, following consultation with the Attorney-General, they were convinced that they had enough evidence to do so, the reservations became of a more serious nature.

This is because the former Police Commissioner was removed from his post by a Labour Minister and the present Police Commissioner, who did work for the Labour Party in Opposition, was immediately parachuted into the post from outside the Force and subsequently dropped the case about the EU Commissioner who would, in turn, be appointed as one of the Labour government’s foremost consultants by a Labour Prime Minister who conveniently forgets how often his Party had accused the Commissioner turned consultant of corruption in the past.

Facts are sacred and no one has the right to shut the Opposition Leader’s mouth when he is drawing his political conclusions. His apparent censure in parliament will be duly challenged.