Muscat’s ministerial salaries 45% costlier, but cheaper individually

FULL DATA and workings

The cost of Joseph Muscat's mega-cabinet is set to cost €1,007,535 in top salaries this year - if ministers are paid pre-2008 salaries - which would be €313,000 or 45% more than the Gonzi II Cabinet at the average levels paid between 2008 and 2011 when their salaries were topped up with MPs' honoraria.

A MaltaToday comparison of salaries paid between 2008-2011 and those that are expected to be paid in 2013, shows the Muscat cabinet is costlier altogether but cheaper per individual member.

Taking into consideration the highest level of salaries paid to the Gonzi II Cabinet, on average Muscat's 23-member executive will cost €43,805 per minister, compared to the average €52,000 that one of Lawrence Gonzi's 13 members cost during the 2008-2011 period.

However, the cost of the Muscat cabinet grows exponentially if the estimated costs of each minister and junior minister's political secretariat are factored in. Estimates could be as high as €800,000 and €400,000 for the staff of ministries and secretariats respectively, per annum.

Between 2008 and 2011, the top salaries paid to the Gonzi II Cabinet were topped up by an MP's honorarium tagged at 70% of Scale 1 salaries. The outrage at the salary increase in 2011 led to ministers having to refund €21,000, representing the portion over and above the standard honorarium (50% of Scale 1), for each year since 2008. In 2012 Lawrence Gonzi forfeited the ministers' MPs' honoraria altogether when he announced a cabinet reshuffle.

Calculations by MaltaToday put the total cost of Lawrence Gonzi's Cabinet between 2008 and 2012 at €3.12 million, representing solely the salaries and allowances paid to the prime minister, a team of eight ministers which in 2010 went down to seven, and four parliamentary secretaries which all became ministers by 2012.

All things staying equal, the top salaries for the Muscat cabinet will total over €5.1 million by 2018.

Apart from the cost of Joseph Muscat's larger cabinet, the biggest in Maltese political history, taxpayers next year could be paying out a considerable amount in transitional allowances to former ministers.

Theoretically, in 2014 all former ministers and the Opposition leader will be eligible to a transitional allowance for three years, unless they re-enter their professional occupations while holding down their parliamentary seats.

The transitional allowance, introduced by Lawrence Gonzi in 2008 for all outgoing ministers and the Opposition leader, would total €257,256 in 2014. If all ministers avail themselves of the allowance, the entire three-year cost would be €771,769.

Under the conditions of the transitional allowance, any other form of employment must be declared and deducted from the amounts due, and the allowance will not be paid in their first year of entitlement. The allowance ceases if the individual takes up another full-time post with the government, its agencies or companies, or a post by nomination of the government with the EU institutions. Individuals are not eligible if they are drawing a pension.