Nationalist MPs to give Gonzi backing against Labour honoraria motion
PN forms committee headed by Tonio Borg to collect amendments from MPs on divorce bill.
Nationalist MPs are expected to back Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi against a Labour motion against the raise in honoraria for Cabinet ministers.
MPs who spoke to MaltaToday said a parliamentary group meeting held this afternoon had been conciliatory in tone, after Gonzi had to face a major setback with the approval of divorce in a national referendum two weeks ago.
Transport minister Austin Gatt, who previously claimed he would resign if the PN executive committee did not take a formal stand against divorce, was not present for the parliamentary group meeting.
Sources said that MPs were told that support for the prime minister would be important ahead of a series of money bills in parliament, where a Nationalist majority is crucial. Deputy prime minister Tonio Borg was amongst those who called on MPs to understand the reason behind the honoraria raise.
Some Cabinet members also pointed out to MP that the divorce bill that is expected to be passed in July could well be watered down from its original version as it passes through committee stage.
Tonio Borg will be chairing a committee of five MPs to receive amendments from MPs to fine-tune the divorce bill. The other MPs are Dolores Cristina, Mario De Marco, Francis Zammit Dimech, and Jesmond Mugliett.
The Opposition has filed a parliamentary motion calling on the House to express its disapproval at the non-transparent manner in which the Cabinet approved an arbitrary increase in ministers’ salaries. The motion calls for the disapproval of Cabinet’s “insensitive, arbitrary and non-transparent” decision to increase ministers’ salary with an increase parliamentary honorarium that was not paid to other MPs.
The Cabinet took a decision on 5 May, 2008 to increase the salaries for the Prime Minister and government ministers and parliamentary secretaries by being paid their MP’s honorarium as well as a higher salary.
The MP’s honorarium turned out to be a higher honorarium than those other MPs, and salaries were bumped up with four-fold increase in duty allowances. The same decision should have included a similar increase for the salaries of the Speaker of the House and the Opposition leader, whose salaries are indexed to the Cabinet’s.
But so far the Cabinet has not forwarded this salary increase to the Opposition leader, despite having been already revealed by MaltaToday in October 2008 and later on last year by Joseph Muscat.