Law-abiding citizens pay their taxes every year. It’s obviously a pain because what we get in hand is a shrivelled-up version of our net salary. So why do we do it?
For the common good: to build schools, hospitals, roads and to pay all the civil servants who work for the common good such as teachers, nurses, doctors, policemen, firemen and so on.
Taxes also pay for those people working in the judicial, executive and legislative branches of the country. From court messengers to judges, from parliament clerks to ministers.
Perhaps we don’t stop to think about it much but, with each tax payment we make, we are ensuring that when we go to Mater Dei Hospital we can get treatment, children in government schools are educated, streets are safer and laws are being made and adhered to.
In fact, considering the work they do, civil servants do not have phenomenal salaries. An average policeman gets about €1,600 per month and that’s taking into consideration overtime. A newly-recruited teacher roughly gets €1,500 a month and it’s only after teaching for about 18 years that they start earning circa €2,000 per month. A beginner nurse gets about €1,400 and, eventually, a hard-working nurse, working an exhausting 70-hour week, can earn some €3,000 a month.
An MP roughly earns €1,500 per month if he or she is a backbencher, whereas ministers earn roughly €5,000 per month. The opposition leader earns about €3,500 per month; the prime minister about €6,000 per month. And the President of Malta pockets about €5,500 per month.
You will notice that no one, not even the president or the prime minister, earns €9,000 a month. That’s quite a hefty sum. Imagine. In three months, you’d be able to buy a sleek BMW cash-on-delivery. In a mere three years, you can buy a luxury three-bed apartment, without mortgage.
Why am I working all these sums this Sunday morning? Well, because, earlier this week, Times of Malta found out that a junior lawyer at the Infrastructure Ministry was earning just that: €9,000 a month, even from before she had obtained her warrant.
Who was this? Amal Clooney? No. It was Adreana Zammit, 22, daughter of Jesmond, top canvasser, best friend and consultant to Ian Borg. You know him, the minister who is bulldozing our farmlands to build roads.
By the end of 2020, just one year after graduating, the youngster was paid a total of at least €108,500. That’s almost double the earnings of the president of Malta, money from our taxes that could have paid for at least four more nurses or helped COVID-hit businesses.
You will notice that no one, not even the president or the prime minister, earns €9,000 a month- Kristina Chetcuti
Her income came in the form of a direct order issued specifically for her juvenile, legal services. Direct orders allow ministers to bypass the salary rules and are meant to be reserved for highly-qualified and experienced people considered accomplished assets for the post.
Not to feel left out, her papa also got some extra pocket money. The Shift reported how, on top of his annual €47k salary, daddy Zammit was given an additional ‘expertise allowance’ of €20k, although he has no specialised qualifications. This means that, at €67k a year, he was earning more than his minister and best friend, Borg. (Makes you wonder how Borg tops up his own salary.)
Perhaps the young lawyer is too inexperienced to understand the meaning of this and perhaps the father lacks the ‘expertise’ but Minister Borg certainly knows the meaning of the word ‘nepotism’. Although, when announcing Zammit junior’s resignation he pretended that it was all an attack on a poor young girl because her poor father is a Laburist. Maybe too much weed-talk is leaving a hazy effect on him.
This is all symptomatic of a corrupt government. Ministers had a free reign to abuse of our money under that disgraced Joseph Muscat. What was to stop them? If, as alleged, the modus operandi of his chief of staff was corruption, then, of course, it was a free for all.
Borg’s direct order to a bosom friend is not a first: last month we had Minister Justyne Caruana issue one to her footballer friend. Their actions are a disgrace to socialism.
The prime minister has only one route: he must get his broom out and stop and investigate all direct orders. And, in the name of all law-abiding citizens, he must fire all abusing ministers.
In the meantime, on another planet, the opposition stays silent. I have no idea what the strategy is but maybe some of them don’t pay their taxes so they couldn’t care less. Or maybe they’re comfortable with having journalists and NGOs and a handful of politicians fight the Castille corruption in their stead.
If the opposition wants to understand to what extent it’s shirking its duty by its omertà, all it has to do is read Marilyn Clark’s book Journalists Under Pressure. The research makes for very scary reading.
It is crystal clear that the Labour Party will win the next election, no matter how many positive things the opposition talks about. And that’s because this Labour government is corrupt to the core and will go to lengths to buy the votes (from our taxes).
For democracy to survive, everyone must put their ambitious unprincipled agendas aside, roll up their sleeves and join the ranks at the frontline of this major battle to clean up the country.
That’s the only way we can secure a semblance of a future for all of our children and not just the chosen few.
krischetcuti@gmail.com
twitter: @krischetcuti