Updated | Sai Mizzi says she earns over €3,000 monthly

Sai Mizzi Liang speaks of her role as trade envo

The wife of energy minister Konrad Mizzi – Sai Mizzi Liang – has told the Maltese press in China that she was earning a salary of over €3,000 a month.

Mizzi Liang was controversially awarded a trade envoy’s post to China, opening up the government to accusations of nepotism after the appointment was made straight after Labour’s re-election in 2013.

Speculation over her salary package grew further when Malta Enterprise, the investment promotion agency employing her, refused to issue details of her salary package and curriculum vitae to the press.

“I can show you my FS3,” Mizzi Liang told journalists in Guiyang, where Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and his delegation were visiting as part of their China visit.

“It is untrue that I earn €13,000 a month. It’s just above €3,000 and I can show you my FS3 form,” Mizzi Liang, visibly upset about media stories on her employment, said.

“I was very upset, but I feel better talking to the press today,” she said. “Had I been asked how much I earned I would have divulged the precise amount myself. I was unaware that requests had been made.”

Mizzi Liang said had advised the Maltese government on what course of action to take on various investment possibilities. “One of my first steps was to improve the issuing of visas for Chinese… the reason for being in Shanghai as consul was because it was not a political centre but a business centre,” Mizzi Liang said.

The Information and Data Protection Commissioner has upheld a refusal by Malta Enterprise to divulge the contract of employment for investment envoys Sai Mizzi Liang - wife of minister Konrad Mizzi – and British national Shiv Nair.

MaltaToday is appealing the IDPC decision.

But the IDPC appeals tribunal chairperson Dr Lynn Zahra said she will not preside over the decision because she was a former employee of Malta Enterprise’s predecessor, the Malta Development Corporation.

The IDPC upheld Malta Enterprise’s refusal to a freedom of information request by MaltaToday, even though the investment promotion corporation said that “in principle [it] is not against granting access to the documents requites.”

Mizzi Liang's CV, contract of employment and their full remuneration and benefits were excluded from the scope of the FOIA by virtue of Article 5(3) – which excludes personal data or any other information whose disclosure is prohibited by other laws.

Article 5 is a blanket exclusion clause that is invoked by most public authorities refusing to divulge any information through the FOIA, unless MPs request it in the House of Representatives. 

In a statement released later in the day, the Nationalist Party said it was standing by its information that Mizzi Liang’s financial package, including salary and perks, amounts to €13,000 per month.

“What’s most remarkable is that information on this financial package has been in the public domain since October 2013 and it is only now that this information is being disputed,” the PN said.

“If Mrs Mizzi’s position is indeed true, which it is not, she has only her political masters to blame for having regularly refused to publish her contract despite repeated requests by the Nationalist Party and independent media houses, using all means at their disposal, including Parliament and the Freedom of Information Act.”

The PN said the government should be publishing Mizzi Liang’s earnings.

“Taxpayers deserve to be told how much they are paying for Minister Konrad Mizzi’s wife’s prolonged stay in China. Government’s lack of transparency is astonishing and flies in the face of its electoral commitments,” the Opposition said.

The Opposition added that the minister’s wife should have also “given details of her efforts and achievements since being appointed Malta Enterprise’s Special Envoy for Asia with such an exorbitant financial package.”