The man who refused €7,000 | Jean-Pierre Farrugia

Nationalist MP Jean-Pierre Farrugia has broken ranks with the majority of MPs who will pocket a substantial increase in their honoraria, by announcing he will donate the salary raise to the Stefano Borgonovo Foundation for research on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a condition from which his wife suffers. 

The Nationalist backbencher only learned of the €7,000 annual increase in MPs’ honoraria from the newspapers a few weeks ago.

While the government claims that the opposition had been informed of the backdated increase, it appears that it failed to inform its own MPs.

“Never in the past two years and seven months was I informed of the increase on the MPs honoraria. The only thing I knew was that Ministers had started to receive their MP honorarium.”

Jean Pierre Farrugia was even more surprised by the sense of urgency shown by the government to finalise this issue before the end of the year.

He recounts how stupefied he was when he received an email from the clerk of the house on New Year’s Eve, informing MPs that they will be receiving the pay rise.

“We were presented with a fait accompli… I was stupefied as I hoped   till the very end that the Prime Minister would remedy the situation.”

Farrugia is bitterly disappointed that his message to the Prime Minister was ignored.

“I had passed him a message through the media expressing my discomfort at the increase… he ignored that message. Now I am sending him another message that I can renounce the raise despite the fact that my wife suffers from a serious disability which requires the backup of the whole family. And I can do this despite being a doctor who works in the poorest localities in Malta. I cannot understand why it was so difficult for everyone else to conduct some soul-searching on whether this was the right time for an increase.”

For Farrugia the increase in MPs’ wages is in marked contrast with the mood of a country where most people are finding it difficult to make ends meet.

“I am stopped by people in the street who are stupefied by the way the government is cut off from their realities. I am sad about this. But this is the way people feel… Obviously those who are better off, who have money in banks, do not feel the pinch as others do. Yet in the case of the MP salary raise the anger was felt in all strata of society”

He also cites the poverty he encounters in his own first district constituency, which includes Valletta, Floriana and Marsa.

“During the Strina charity marathon they were constantly showing the top 10 localities making donations. At no time did any first district locality feature among the top 10 donors… In the second district the situation is even worse than in the first. And I wonder whether the Prime Minister is aware of what is happening in his own constituency.”

He also contrasts the increase in the honoraria of MPs with the government’s stinginess in increasing social benefits.

Reacting to the budget in November before the increase in MPs wages was announced Farrugia said today that the increases in supplementary allowances given in the Budget were so low, it would have been better had they not been given

The increases amounted to just 54c for single persons and 86c for couples per week.

“If the country’s circumstances did not permit a decent raise a benefit introduced by a Nationalist government led by Eddie Fenech Adami to assist the poorest people how could I than accept a €7,000 annual increase myself?”

Farrugia’s criticism of the increase in MP wages comes in the wake of earlier criticism of what he described as a shift to the right which has rendered the Nationalist Party unrecognisable.

When asked whether the Nationalist Party is the same party it was in the past, Jean Pierre Farrugia replies with an emphatic and painful “No.” 

But he does not stop there: quoting another dissident who left the party to join Alternattiva Demokratika before the 2008 election.

“When resigning from the party three years ago Carmel Cacopardo said that he could not recognise the party anymore. I am still hoping that it will recover its identity. I understand that the party is a broad church but we can’t forget those values which shaped our party.”

And for Farrugia, social justice constitutes the fundamental part of the party’s Christian Democratic identity.

Jean Pierre Farrugia also questions the “universalism” of the Maltese welfare state, insisting that it should be focused on those who are most in need.

He finds it ridiculous that all diabetics, irrespective of their income. are eligible for a pink card which entitles them to a list of free medicines which are not very expensive.

“I perfectly understand that very expensive medicines are given for free to everyone. But it is ridiculous to give medicines costing less than €10 a month to someone earning thousands a month.”

Unlike the Labour opposition which lambasted Central Bank governor Michael Bonello for advocating means testing certain benefits, Farrugia thinks that he was spot on.

“The idea that everyone grabs something from the State, irrespective of his or her financial means, is surely not Christian Democracy.  Christian Democracy is based on giving equal opportunities to all while assisting those in need. Dishing out money to everyone is madness.”

Health inequalities are a major pre-occupation for Farrugia.  He is particularly irked by the government’s policy of first introducing the pharmacy of your choice scheme in the most affluent parts of the island.

He notes that in the first district, the scheme was only implemented in Pieta and is absent in localities like Valletta, Floriana, Hamrun and Marsa.

“It is practically absent from the south of Malta. The pharmacy of your choice is now found in all districts from the seventh district upwards, but is but is absent from the first to the sixth district”

I point out to Farrugia that the districts excluded from the scheme are Labour-leaning.

“This has not crossed my mind,” Farrugia replies with an incredulous grin on his face.

He also notes that one of the sharpest decreases in government expenditure in the past year was that on medicines and surgical material, which was decreased by €13.3 million. 

“I have no difficulty with decreasing the expense on medicines. But it makes no sense to reduce the expenditure on medicine and at the same time implement the pharmacy of your choice in the most affluent parts of the country.”

He notes that since the introduction of the scheme in the northern parts of the country more people started applying for the yellow card – which unlike the pink card is not means tested and entitles people suffering from particular conditions to free medicines.

These people did not show much interest in getting a yellow card when they had to wait in long queue at health centres, but with the introduction of the pharmacy of your choice, their entitlement to free medicines was facilitated.

“People who never expressed a remote interest to apply for Scheme 5 are now applying at an increasing rate.”

The most common medicines available from Scheme 5 are those against high pressure.

“Someone earning thousands of euros a month should not get these medicines for free.”

Last year Farrugia had expressed strong reservations over proposed reforms which would shift the burden of primary care from health centres to private doctors.

“It was surely not me who stopped the Prime Minister in this. As long as I was trying to explain things to him, he did not listen...  What stopped him was the negative feedback from doctors in general, including from his own brother.”

He makes it clear that his concerns were not exclusively those expressed by doctors.

“I had two roles. As a family doctor working on my own, it was impossible for me to provide a 24-hour service for patients seven days a week. This system cannot work until doctors are encouraged to pool their resources.”

But Farrugia’s major concern was that the system would have raised costs for the worse off in society. He notes that at present, government is competing with private practitioners by offering the same service for free, thus driving private fees down. 

“But if responsibility for primary care is shifted to private practitioners these will be overburdened and they will have only one way of driving people away, that of increasing prices.”

According to Farrugia public primary health care provides a safety net during times of economic difficulties.  He cites a reply to one of his parliamentary questions, showing that between 2005 and 2008 visits to locality health centres decreased by 100,000. But between 2008 and 2010 visits to health centres increased again by 50,000.

“The government has to remain present in this sector and has to resist pressures from private clinics.”

But Farrugia proposes a greater role for the private clinics in minor surgery like hip replacements and cataracts.

“People under the age of 61, who do not usually suffer from complications and who are fully insured, should be encouraged to undergo these operations in private clinics instead of increasing the waiting lists at Mater Dei. What sense does it make to have insured people still resorting to Mater Dei while the waiting lists keep growing?”

The government insists that its priority in the past year dominated by the international recession was to safeguard jobs.

Farrugia notes that in contrast to many other European countries unemployment has not reared its ugly head. 

“By protecting jobs the government has done a lot to prevent even greater social problems than we face.”

But Farrugia also puts the government’s success in the employment sector in perspective, noting that very few new full-time jobs have been created in the past few years.

“Although we have avoided a full-blown recession… since the election we have kept the same number of full-time jobs. Previous Nationalist governments had a record of creating 1,500 new jobs annually.  When one fails to create more new full-time jobs than those lost, people –especially those with low skills – suffer”.

But he also notes that the government’s PR over the past months has been marked by a schizophrenic approach.

“On one day they tell us that the recession is over and everything is fine and some days later they tell us that we are still caught in one of the worse recessions in history. They go from one extreme to another.”

Farrugia also welcomes the increase in the number of tourists during the past year but also puts this success into perspective.

“Without any doubt the 1.3 million increase in tourists is something positive and this should have created more feel good factor in the country. But the number of jobs in hotels in restaurants has remained practically the same despite this success”. 

The Harmonised index of consumer prices also shows a decrease of 10.5 points in the price of hotels and restaurants.

“Despite the fact that tourists have left more money, statistics show that hotels have gained decreased their prices and jobs in the sector have not increased. So what is happening? Is it true that because the economy is turning round people are feeling better?” 

One of the main concerns of the Maltese remains the hike in utility bills.  But this is one aspect where Farrugia swims against the current.

“I have not criticised and will never criticise the government for imposing carbon taxes, effecting the consumption of fossil fuels which contribute to global warming.”

What Farrugia finds it hard to understand is the failure by the government to invest money in installing solar water heaters on its own housing estates.

He points out that poorer people do not have the disposable income to buy this energy saving equipment and the government should therefore intervene.

“Probably there is not enough money for this. But if there is no money for this, why is there enough money to triple salaries of Ministers?”

Farrugia is presently one of five out of 35 Nationalist MPs who apart from being paid for presiding a parliamentary committee for six months have not been appointed to any role which supplements their income either as speaker, deputy speaker, ministers, parliamentary secretaries and parliamentary assistants.

The five include two former Ministers – Louis Deguara and Ninu Zammit – newcomer Karl Gouder and the Prime Minister’s own brother Michael Gonzi: whom Farrugia describes as the “sacrificial lamb.”

Farrugia had refused an appointment as parliamentary assistant which offers the significant remuneration of 65% the wage of scale 1 official in the public service.

Apart from his reservations on a system introduced in the House of Commons (UK) a century ago he also refused because this position makes sense for beginners not for veteran politicians. 

“For me the choice is to either form part of the government or not. I did not want a pseudo government post.”

According to Farrugia by increasing the remuneration of MPs, the Prime Minister has exposed himself to the charge made by Lino Spiteri that ‘he is buying silence even from the opposition benches’.

But Farrugia makes it clear that he is simply quoting Spiteri and not agreeing with what he said. But he makes it clear that he finds the system described by Spiteri despicable.

“This system which has been used by Italian Prime Minister Slivio  Berlusconi and represents one of the worst aspect of right wing politics, that of  thinking that one can do anything one likes with money. I do not like this strategy at all.”

In the past months, reacting to the growing debate on divorce, exponents of the party like Deputy Leader Tonio Borg have stressed the party’s Christian identity on moral issues. But Farrugia does not equate his party’s identity to confessionalism.

“I am a Christian Democrat and a Catholic. But I am not a moral   conservative. The Nationalist Party I know is not confessional. It is a party which, whenever confronted by an issue, it does not desist from studying and tackling it…”

As an example of the Christian Democratic attitude to moral issues he cites the way the parliamentary committee he presided tackled the issue of IVF.

“It was not a decision taken by me, or the other committee members Frans Agius or Michael Farrugia. It was based on the advice of experts in the field who have hands on experience... These experts were unanimous in saying that the freezing of embryos is indispensable in making the IVF process safer.”

Farrugia cites an email confidentially sent to him showing him photo of a 24-week old foetus which survived for one day, following the death of its two siblings earlier during the pregnancy, adding that: “There is always human life but one cannot compare an embryo to a 24-week  foetus whose features are fully recognisable.”

It is implanting more than two embryos could result in similar deaths or in children being born with serious diseases like cerebral palsy, Farrugia says.  The freezing of embryos will put an end to this practice and thus prevent these tragedies from happening.