Increases in the wages of parliamentary secretaries were due to salary improvements stemming from new collective agreements in the civil service, the cost of living allowance and in some cases the redemption of a €7,000 annual allowance instead of being given a second car, the government has said.
Addressing a press briefing at Castille, Principal Permanent Secretary Mario Cutajar categorically denied that members of Cabinet had been given a pay rise by stealth, as Opposition MP Jason Azzopardi has been claiming since Friday.
“This is absolutely not the case as the current structure is identical to that introduced following the change in government in 2013,” he said.
However, he acknowledged that the declaration of assets by the members of Cabinet left much to be desired as it lacked a detailed revenue breakdown.
The press briefing was called in response to requests by the media, including Times of Malta, for the full list of salaries for junior ministers since Labour’s election to government in 2013.
Claims of a pay rise “by stealth” were made by Opposition MP Jason Azzopardi who said on Facebook last Friday that parliamentary secretaries were earning €60,000 per year - €18,000 more than in 2013.
Though he initially based his allegation on a story uploaded by The Shift News, the MP subsequently backed his argument on the basis of the declaration of assets of other Parliamentary secretaries filed from 2013 onwards.
According to these documents, junior ministers such as Silvio Parnis who listed his “total income [for 2018] from government payroll as minister/parliamentary secretary as €60,740.02”.
Quoting from an unpublished report which had been leaked to the media in 2015 about an overhaul of the salary structure for politicians, Dr Azzopardi noted that until 2013 a parliamentary secretary’s annual salary was of €42,232.
While raising questions on the €18,000 discrepancy, he added that in 2018 junior ministers were being paid thousands more than the Opposition leader. Such comparison was made, in view of the fact that until 2013 the latter’s salary was roughly equal to that of a parliamentary secretary.
Upward revisions of €800 per year
Faced by these allegations, the government issued a statement on Saturday in which it insisted there had been no changes to the junior ministers’ salary. This denial was echoed on Sunday by the Labour Party.
Nonetheless, Dr Azzopardi stuck to his guns and insisted there had been an upward revision in the parliamentary secretaries’ remuneration package.
However, the principal permanent secretary this afternoon rubbished these claims. He noted that following the change in government in 2013, a duty allowance whereby ministers and parliamentary secretaries were entitled to a 20 per cent extra of their salary was abolished for a fixed sum of €5,823 – about €3,000 less.
Nonetheless, in view of the fact that salaries of members of Cabinets are pegged to the top scale within the civil service, improvement in wages negotiated through various collected agreements, resulted in upward revisions of about €800 per year. Consequently the overall wage for junior ministers increased from €42,233 in 2013 to €47,022 last year.
The other €13,000 were due to the duty allowance (€5,823) and in some cases parliamentary secretaries opting to receive €7,000 in cash instead of being given a second car.
In his criticism, Dr Azzopardi had also questioned a €12,000 discrepancy in 2018 between the salary of the Opposition leader and that of junior ministers, when in 2013 these had been much closer to each other.
However, a large chunk of this discrepancy was due to the €7,000 second car allowance.