In the same days that the Labour government was criticised harshly for appointing one of its backbenchers to a post within one of its entities, it appointed yet another one of its MPs to a similar position.

In a report dated 24 November, the Standards Commissioner, Chief Justice Emeritus Joseph Azzopardi, made the following observation in his report with regard to Rosianne Cutajar’s role at the Institute of Tourism Studies.

The existing practice that Members of Parliament are given a secondary employment with the government is one that is not compatible with the principle duties of an MP, the commissioner said. The Standard Commissioner’s position is in conformity with the opinion expressed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The commissioner’s report was about a complaint filed by NGO Repubblika on MP Rosianne Cutajar who, when still part of the Labour parliamentary group, had been given a consultancy job with the ITS. No action could be taken against Cutajar because the complaint was time-barred.

On 1 December, the government threw the Standards Commissioner’s recommendation out the window.

In what could be interpreted as an act of defiance, another Labour backbencher, this time Omar Farrugia, was appointed to chair the national sports agency SportMalta.

Farrugia could be the best man for the job, but he is first and foremost an MP with responsibilities towards Parliament and his constituency. As the Standards Commissioner indicated, the role of an MP and head of a government entity, in this case SportMalta, is not compatible.

And yet the government ploughs on in this hard-headedness to go against what should be standard practice.

It is clear that the Rosianne Cutajar lesson has not been learnt.

One really wonders what it will take for the Labour government to change tack. The appointment of backbenchers in government roles is apparently a strategy that Labour, in spite of the opinions to the contrary, endorses wholeheartedly and will not back down from. It wants to appease its backbenchers, possibly for not being given a role in the Cabinet, by giving them well-paid jobs in a bid to keep them quiet.

The previous Standards Commissioner, George Hyzler, had gone one step further in a report he had published in 2019. He had suggested that MPs should be disqualified from the House of Representatives if they accept contracts of any kind from the government or public entities.

He has said that this practice is “fundamentally wrong” and should end as it dilutes Parliament’s role of scrutinising the government, also going against the Code of Ethics of Public Employees and the underlying principles of the Constitution. Such jobs place MPs in a position of financial dependence on the government, undermining their independence, the report had said.

That time the government had replied that it would be studying the report in detail.

Four years has passed and it is unlikely that the government did any studying at all. If it did, it has not changed its mind and has carried on giving these jobs to its backbenchers.

Such a practice should stop.