If the job of a worker on an indefinite contract of employment is terminated after one year’s service, the law gives that worker a right to a week’s paid notice. He or she can choose to work the notice period or not and be paid half the benefit in cash.
For two years’ service that becomes two weeks, and so on, but, no matter how long you have served, the law caps the maximum notice period at 12 weeks.
But this law does not apply to the lawmakers themselves. The heroes of the working class have got together and have privately and secretly redefined special termination benefits for themselves which are somewhat stratospheric compared to those established by law for ordinary people.
The prime example of this is the Castille worker who disgraced himself as prime minister and resigned after seven years because, in his own words, he “simply had to”. Working day and night in his office, on major projects like Café Premier, Vitals, Montenegro, and passport sales seminars, just to name a few, he worked tirelessly and with dedication to improve our quality of life, working for a pittance annual salary of €70,000.
He could not increase his own wages without going against his pre-2013 ‘Honest Joe’ election promises not to do what those greedy PN ministers tried to do when they ran the country.
So, before resigning in January 2020 he bumped up the termination terms and, upon leaving Castille, he took home a record €120,000 handshake, plus the keys to a publicly owned office complex free of rent, plus a car, a driver and a personal assistant, plus a second car and driver for his wife. No time limit on these publicly paid perks has been fixed or declared to have a phase-out date.
Accordingly, every 10 years, the Muscats should receive about one million of taxpayer euros in cash or kind. Within weeks of retiring from politics, Muscat received another €60,000 from Accutor, a Swiss company, which had, incidentally, had just received millions from Steward Health Care. He insists he worked honestly for three months for that money as an international consultant for an undisclosed client.
Every 10 years, the Muscats should receive about one million of taxpayer euros in cash or kind- Eddie Aquilina
We then saw Edward Scicluna soon follow the wonderful example of his former boss.
Scicluna decided to appoint himself head of the Central Bank. So, a few days prior to doing so, as finance minister, he reformed the salary of the post by another €10,000 per annum. When he finally crossed Castille Square to take up his new job he held a right to a further termination pay out of some €40,000 to see him through the next 24 hours till he reached his new posting. And he thus laughed all the way to the Central Bank, literally.
There are cases where a double disgraced MP got paid two subsequent termination pay outs within the period of a year. Rosianne Cutajar, of “tħanżer” fame, got paid nearly €28,000 having served for less than four months in cabinet as the junior minister for equality, of all things.
It is reported that so far, the Robert Abela cabinet reshuffles have cost the country nearly a third of a million euros in these benefits. If Labour has to lose government in the future, the 26 strong weak-minded members of cabinet will between them cost us close to a million euros more. And prime minister Abela, for himself and his wife, will want nothing less than the severance package that Muscat gave himself on his way down.
Think for a minute.
If this was a factory situation, and 27 workers were found redundant after 30 years of loyal service, the most they could get between them would be less than half of what we have paid nine cabinet members in these benefits in the past 24 months for a minute number of years of service.
I tell you that we owe it to our present governors that we live in an age of civil rights and equality in everything and for everyone. Trust me on this. Please.