Former minister Konrad Mizzi will not make a cent from his rescinded €80,000-a-year contract, Prime Minister Robert Abela said on Wednesday. 

“I am informed that he has not received any payments and will not receive any compensation for the termination,” he said when asked. 

The decision means Dr Mizzi will have to resort to court action if he is to try and obtain any money out of the secret deal. Attempts to contact the former minister for comment were unsuccessful. 

Dr Mizzi was given the lucrative two-year deal with the Malta Tourism Authority just two weeks after he was forced to quit as Tourism Minister late last year. The deal only came to light when Times of Malta revealed it on Monday evening.

The prime minister, who took over earlier this month, said that news of the deal came as a surprise to him too. Dr Abela said that he had no known about it until it was revealed. 

The story about an €80,000-a-year job given to the former minister generated shock and anger including within the government ranks on Tuesday, as activists vowed to take to the streets in protest outside Parliament the following day.

Amid widespread anger, the government on Tuesday evening said it was terminating the contract immediately, adding that no payments had been made to Dr Mizzi.

Labour MPs have their say

The move caused disquiet among Labour MPs and Cabinet members. One minister described it as “disgusting” while another labelled it a “golden handshake”.

Another MP labelled it “shameful” and questioned whether Prime Minister Robert Abela knew about the appointment given his position as legal adviser to former prime minister Joseph Muscat.

One Labour MP said the case highlighted the need to introduce clear regulations forbidding such backroom deals. 

"This is a classic case of revolving doors and it highlights the need to have rules regulating this for the sake of good governance and for the people concerned," he said. 

Another expressed regret at the way Dr Mizzi's political career had imploded. 

"I think the decision [to terminate the contract] was correct. It's a shame that events of the past years, including the things he did himself, have made Konrad unable to serve the country," the MP mused.

"Konrad has talent. He is a doer and the country does not have many people like that," the MP added. 

Public anger

The party’s former general secretary, Dominic Fenech, said the contract came at a time when Labour was meant to be repairing the damage to its reputation.

"If they think that we will put up with everything just because we are Labourites, they should think again," he wrote.

In response to the minister’s comments, Daphne Caruana Galizia’s son, Matthew, urged Ms Farrugia Portelli to “stop crying about how difficult and complicated your job is and fire the thief”.

The contract was signed on the MTA's behalf by its CEO Johann Buttigieg. Efforts to contact Mr Buttigieg for comment were unsuccessful.

Dr Muscat, who was the prime minister when Dr Mizzi signed the €80,000-a-year deal, declined to comment when questioned by reporters outside Parliament on Tuesday. 

In the early hours of the day, the government was also forced to back-pedal on Dr Mizzi’s appointment to head Parliament’s delegation to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a group of 57 states brought together to address a wide range of issues, including corruption and rule of law.

Prime Minister Robert Abela, who was in Brussels on Tuesday, did not comment on the matter. 

Mizzi's lucrative deal

Dr Mizzi stepped down in the wake of the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder probe fallout after spending over three years resisting calls for his resignation over the Panama Papers scandal.

Wrong to assume that Labourites tolerated such deeds

The Panama Papers leak had revealed plans to receive payments from 17 Black, a company in the United Arab Emirates owned by murder suspect Yorgen Fenech. 

According to the latest available asset declarations, Dr Mizzi earned €62,000 as a minister.

The Malta Tourism Authority contract shows he would have been paid €6,700 per month, exclusive of VAT (€80,400 annually), plus an executive-level car and driver, which Dr Mizzi could have opted to replace by a lump sum of €11,400 annually.

Included in his contract was medical insurance for him, his wife and family as well as free internet and mobile phone service.

Dr Mizzi would have earned more than he did as tourism minister and more than many others, including the Prime Minister himself.

The deal would have meant he earned almost two-and-a-half times more in a year than the average Maltese family and more than four times the amount the average employee earn, according to National Statistics Office figures.

PN calls for parliamentary debate

Before the decision was made to terminate Dr Mizzi’s contract, the Nationalist Party had insisted on it being urgently considered by Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee.

Opposition leader Adrian Delia and the shadow minister for tourism, Robert Arrigo, wrote to the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee calling for the committee to urgently consider the matter.

They said the committee should determine whether financial rules had been followed, if the MTA board had known about the deal and whether the go-ahead of the Finance Minister was sought. They pointed out that, in terms of the Tourism Services Act, the tourism authority could not approve any expenses that were not authorised by Parliament.

This, the Opposition said, was an obscene contract that needed to be terminated immediately. 

Call for investigation

Alternattiva Demokratika chairperson Carmel Cacopardo has asked the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life to investigate former prime minister Joseph Muscat, former Minister and MP, Konrad Mizzi, the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) Chairman Gavin Gulia and MTA CEO Johann Buttigieg over the consultancy contract.

“Joseph Muscat should be investigated because when the contract was awarded there was no tourism minister and he was directly responsible for the ministry.  Johann Buttigieg signed the contract when [Dr] Mizzi had just resigned because of his involvement in the Panama Papers scandal. The scandal and [Dr] Mizzi's involvement in it caused harm to the country. Those involved in such scandals should not be rewarded; Konrad Mizzi should disappear from the public scene,” he said.

He continued: “Gavin Gulia should be investigated because he is MTA's Chairman. The investigation should also establish whether Konrad Mizzi put pressure on officials to be awarded a consultancy, which officials were his 'dependents' as a Tourism Minister a few days earlier."