Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has maintained the exact same bank balance for four years running by managing his income “like any other family”, a government spokesman said.
The OPM spokesman was replying to questions by the Times of Malta following the tabling of the declarations of assets by Members of Parliament, including that of Dr Muscat. Every year, MPs are obliged to submit a declaration of their assets as at the end of the previous year. They must hand this in by the end of April.
For the fourth year running, the Prime Minister listed in his declaration that he held €75,000 in bank deposits.
Asked how Dr Muscat managed year after year to live off a €50,000 annual pay without eating into any of his savings, and whether he had any other sources of income to supplement this, the OPM spokesman said that the Prime Minister had no other income.
He added that Dr Muscat “manages within this like any other family”.
Pressed to say how the Prime Minister managed to maintain the steady bank balance for four years in a row while also paying for his two children to attend a private school and also going on private holidays, the spokesman reiterated simply that “during his time as Prime Minister he has not been able to increase his savings”.
On the private holidays, the spokesman said that there was only “a single family holiday, for a very special family occasion, the cost of which was made public”.
Meanwhile, Opposition leader Adrian Delia’s declaration shows that he has a total of €713,356 in loans.
Of this, Dr Delia has a home loan with HSBC of €508,000 as well as another two Banif Home loans of €70,216 and €30,347. The PN leader also has a third Banif loan of €19,051 and one BOV loan of €24,742.
In his declaration, Dr Delia also listed a savings account of €26,091 at BOV held by his wife Nickie Vella de Fremaux while under other financial interests, Dr Delia included €209,644 (with profits) at Lifelink Growth.
Seven MPs miss declaration deadline
Six Labour MPs and one from the Nationalist Party missed the deadline to submit their declaration of assets, as required by the Members of Parliament’s
code of ethics.
The deadline for the submission of declarations of assets for the year ending
December 31, 2017 was Monday.
When the Times of Malta went through the declarations on Thursday
afternoon, Labour MPs Stefan Buontempo, Joe Farrugia, Charles Mangion, Franco Mercieca and Charles Buhagiar had yet to submit theirs.
Meanwhile, Labour MP and political blogger Glenn Bedingfield had also missed the deadline but submitted his declaration late on Thursday afternoon.
PN MP Tony Abela was the only member from the Opposition to miss the deadline.