Under Labour, less women are directors of public corporations

Updated on 4 December

He claimed his government was to be the "most feminist ever" and yet, eight months into the Labour administration, Joseph Muscat has presided over a drastic under-representation of women in the top government corporations and private companies in which the government still holds a major controlling interest.

In 2012, MaltaToday had revealed how the Nationalist government was opposing the EU's plans to force publicly-listed companies to have 40% of their boards of directors occupied by women.

But in 2013, Labour has not even improved female representation in the leaders and directors of the government's top corporations, first flagged by this newspaper last year.

From a list of top government corporations whose decisions affect each and every Maltese taxpayers' daily life, as well as two publicly listed companies - Bank of Valletta and Malta International Airport - in which the State has a sizeable ownership, women in directors' positions have dipped by a whopping 43%.

In 2012, MaltaToday found 29% of directors' posts in 20 top corporations were women: under Labour, this occupancy has been practically halved to 16%.

Women disappeared from MIA plc's board, Malta Government Investments, Malita plc and not installed on the new Public Broadcasting Services' editorial board. They were whittled down to just one in the Water Services and Enemalta boards, while the only increase took place on the Gozo Channel board.

Bank of Valletta, which would be affected by the EU's gender quotas, saw its nine-man board welcome Ann Fenech after a shareholders' election. Government appoints BOV's chairman.

Transport Malta - not included in this article when it was first published on 1 December 2013 - has an 11-man board. The female directors increased by one under Labour, to bring the balance to five women and six men.

Asked to comment about this dismal state of affairs, civil liberties minister Helena Dalli simply reaffirmed the government's commitment to EU commissioner Viviane Reding's proposal to eliminate gender imbalance in decision-making positions.

No explanation was forthcoming on why Labour has presided over such a massive reduction in women on these top corporations.

"The overall percentage of women on boards for this year is 27.63%," a spokesperson said, in figures that include 836 people appointed to government committees, boards, and also public corporations. The data for 2012, supplied by the National Commission for the Protection of Equality, is still unavailable.

"The rate of women is still very low. In fact, following a change in administration, the Maltese government changed its position in the European Council with regards to the Reding Proposal which aims to eliminate gender imbalance in decision-making positions. This data supports this rationale and the change in position."

The government's position was echoed exactly by the Malta Confederation of Women's Organisations: "Our sources indicate that the overall percentage of women on boards for this year is 27.63%," chair Lorraine Spiteri said.

Spiteri was asked to comment on the same data supplied to her by MaltaToday (next page), but failed to comment on the atcual worsening of the gender balance in these top companies.

"The MCWO  feels that this is still very low and we urge the government to utilise this still untapped economic potential of women, keeping in mind that well over 60% of graduates are females. Therefore the level of women with a high level of education makes this possible."

Spiteri added that the MCWO was pleased that the Labour adminstration was now supporting the Reding proposal.

On the other hand, no comment came from the National Council of Women, which recently entered the political fray only in a denouncement of the sale of citizenship. On her part, Nationalist MP and shadow civil liberties minister Claudette Buttigieg, did not return a request for comment.

Gender imbalance worsens

According to the European Commission's database of gender quotas, Malta's 20 largest quoted companies trading on the Malta Stock Exchange are all chaired by men, while 96% of all company directors sitting on boards are men.

It's a minor improvement on 2012's 3% occupancy of women on company boards.

The proposed EU law for quotas exclude publicly-listed companies that are SMEs employing less than 250 employees or whose annual turnover does not exceed €50 million.

It would affect a company like Bank of Valletta, in which government retains a 25% shareholding and the right to appoint the chairperson of the board of directors. But while shareholders have appointed Ann Fenech to the board, the government appointed economist John Cassar White to the bank's chairmanship.

For state-owned companies trading on the stock exchange, gender quotas will come into force by 2018.

Even Malta's new cabinet of 23 ministers has less women proportionately, with Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca and Helena Dalli as ministers for social policy, and civil liberties, respectively. In 2012, only two ministers were women in the smaller cabinet of 13.

Politically, female representation has increased inside the House of Representatives from six to 10, or 9% to 15% of the House, while inside the European Parliament, bye-elections improved the composition of the Maltese contingent with three women.

Top officials - the Chief Justice, the judges who sit on the Constitutional and all courts of appeal, the Attorney General, the Auditor General and the Speaker of the House - also remain men.

Of 21 magistrates, 11 are women, while four judges out of 21 are women.

The European Commission says that according to the EU Labour Force Survey, Malta has over 1,000 women in the private sector who are directors and CEOs or managers of small enterprises, compared to over 4,000 men who have the same roles in private business.

This situation is contrasted by the fact that 60% of university graduates are women. In 2012, the EC also remarked that Malta's severe gender imbalance was felt in other aspects of public life: across the civil service and the nine government ministries, there are only eight women in the highest, non-political administrative positions compared to 92 men (level 1 administrators), and 28 women compared to 72 men in level 2 administrative roles.

In politics, the gender imbalance persists with less women mayors than in 2011: just six (9%) out of 68 mayors, and 96 or 21% out of 453 councillors, less than the 98 women councillors last registered in 2011. Mayors are elected if they have the highest first-count vote, within the party that gains more seats on the council.

What they said

President's speech, April 2013 "We must ensure that in no way will women be discriminated against in factors such as salaries, conditions and opportunities for advancement in the workplace. This Government will give a greater role to women in positions of decision-making. It will ensure that more members serving on boards, commissions and other appointments by Government are women.

Joseph Muscat's biographical manifesto 'Malta li irrd nghix fiha'

• 21 January 2012 - "Women are our society's fibre, who can take the best decisions, and that a country with more women in positions of responsibility is a better country"
• 2 November 2011 - "It will be my generation's challenge to give a strong sign in favour of a more feminist political system, where women are encouraged to participate and have a more central role." -

Labour electoral manifesto

• 16. Equality between women and men "We will ensure that more members on boards, commissions and other government nominations are women."

Women on boards: the facts

• On average, a mere 15.8% of board members and 16.8% of non-executive board members of the largest companies listed on stock exchanges in the 27 Member States are women. Women are barely visible among top business leaders - more than 96 out of 100 com¬pany presidents are men.
• Countries with legislative quotas remain the motor of change: the proportion of women on the boards of Italian companies (on the FTSE MIB index) has nearly doubled over the past year reaching 11.0% in October 2012, up from 5.8% in October 2011. This change is prompted by the legislation adopted in July 2011, which requires publicly listed and state owned companies to have at least one third of the under-represented gender on both management and supervisory boards by 2015.
• Similarly, in France the proportion of women board members has doubled in two years to reach 25.1% compared to 12.3% in October 2010. Again, this is a response to the 40% quota to be achieved in large companies by 2017. In Iceland, legislation introduced in 2010 set a deadline of September 2013 for companies with more than 50 employees to have at least 40% of each gender on the board. By October 2012 the proportion of women on the boards of Iceland's largest companies had reached 36.2%, an increase of 15.7 percentage points over the previous year.