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Honoraria : What lies beneath?

Fausto Majistral is back with another Zolabyte. He gives us a no-nonsense analysis of the main issues that surround the whole ruckus about honoraria. It’s less about the politics and more about the constitutional issues.

Service as an MP in the Maltese House of Representatives is a part-time affair. “Part-time” is a misnomer, of course, because parliamentary work is not only attending sittings in plenary and involves all other sorts of things including constituents who could be quite demanding (to say the least) both in what they demand and the time at which they demand.

But we should not linger on this point: after all, nobody calls teachers “part timers” because the time they spend in the classroom is less than the usual annual average of 40 hours.

There were moves in the past, very discreet, to make parliament a “full time” affair. That would have meant, amongst other things, that apart from ministerial duties parliamentary service would have been to the exclusion of all other work (a condition which would have no justification for as long as being an MP was part-time). A significant advantage gained would have been that the risk of situations of conflict of interest would have been hugely reduced.

Needless to say, this was resisted by some MPs, particularly those who are also members of a profession. Their full time work is as big as the size of their clientele which is largely a matter of their choosing. In many cases, the service they offer their clientele can be delegated to professional partners or assistants. MPs whose full time job is as an employee, where the working hours are not of their choosing and where the duties cannot be delegated, do not have such luxury.

So parliamentary service remained part-time. Paid. Which you can combine with any other full time job. Equally paid. Except for one full time job: being minister.

Before anyone makes the point that being a minister you waive your moral right to be paid anything for basic MP work because your full time job is paid from the public purse, please note that you can combine a full time salary for a job in the public sector and the honorarium for being a part-time MP. Being a minister is one of the very few jobs, in the public as well as a private sector, which disqualifies you from the parliamentary honorarium.

I will not go here into the concurrent issue of whether MPs’ honoraria should have gone from 50% to 70% of the civil service’s salary scale 1. For the very simple reason that, I have no way to tell if 50% or 70% is what is deserved for the duties in question. Note however that one of Jean-Pierre Farrugia’s main gripes (which I think is representative of what the critics have so far said) was that it was bad timing in the prevailing financial situation.

Certainly. But please note that a pay increase that’s unrelated either to productivity or cost of living is hardly and alien concept in Maltese labour law. It’s the stuff annual increments based on a sector’s collective agreement are made of.

Neither do I need to go into the other main gripe, that these increases should not have been introduced by stealth. For the simple reason, that the critics are right on this one. Salaries and honoraria for ministers and parliamentarians should be the subject of law, as is already the case with the salaries of the President of Malta, the Attorney-General and the Auditor-General, or at least a parliamentary resolution.

But this should not detract us from the fact that the way payment is made for ministerial or parliamentary service disadvantages members of one category of employment over an other. The compromise struck between Farrugia and his Leader hardly addresses that question.

This is not a trivial discussion or one which is irrelevant to the health of a democracy. The early proponents of paid service argued their case on the grounds that no one should be barred from being an MP if elected simply because he has no other private means.

That was the argument in the UK in the beginning of the 20th century; it would have lost little force in Malta of the 21st. Apart from the Leader of the Opposition and MPs who have private means, note the the MPs who first and enthusiastically stated they’ll donate the increase to charity or some pet campaign were mostly members of the professions.

Given much credence to that quote by George Bernard Shaw that the professions are really conspiracies against the laity.

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Zolabytes is a rubrique on J’accuse – the name is a nod to the original J’accuser (Emile Zola) and a building block of the digital age (byte). Zolabytes is intended to be a collection of guest contributions in the spirit of discussion that has been promoted by J’accuse on the online Maltese political scene for 5 years.
Opinions expressed in zolabyte contributions are those of the author in question. Opinions appearing on zolabytes do not necessarily reflect the editorial line of J’accuse the blog.
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2010 – The Fausto Perspective (Part I)

After the forced hiatus thanks to the great storms in central Europe J’accuse returns with a multi-part Zolabyte by Fausto Majistral. In this serialised perspective Fausto looks back at the salient moments of the year that is about to end. Here goes…

LOCAL COUNCILS

Here’s a thought to brighten your day: 2010 was the first election-free year since 1993 (that’s, of course, if you don’t take into account the gripping administrative elections in places like Bubaqra and Xlendi). Main reason was the hiatus in local elections until 2012. But that doesn’t mean local councils were not in the news. Charges brought against a number of councillors gave reason for one paper to ask whether the whole local government system was at risk.

This was a wrong diagnosis. The number of charges brought which were related to elective office were four (MaltaToday counts eight but half of these are not, strictly speaking, related to the office). Two of these include the mayor of Sta Venera not issuing a €80 invoice and the mayor of Żebbuġ (Gozo) charged with having bought a laptop with public funds and which, so far, seems to have been purchased with the council’s agreement, to do council work from home — the incriminating “evidence” being the daughter using it to play around on FB.

More serious are the charges brough against the former mayors of San Gwann and Sliema, the latter which also offered the drama of a particuarly spectacular fall. Starting off from the Executive Secretary flagging irregularities, to a police investigation, to a statement admitting acceptance of bribes, to a kind of retraction (offered to the media but not in court), to political arm-twisting and a suffered no-confidence motion.

The Nationalist Party may have managed to cordon off the toxic area. But the depth of the division within Nationalist ranks in Sliema became evident and Robert Arrigo seems to be less of a shining star now.

COMEBACK KID

Local government was jinxed in 2010 … right to the top. Chris Said had to relinquish his post as PS (responsible amongst other things for local government) because he was to face charges of perjury. Things worth putting on record. First, that the “perjury” involved an inconsequential point about whether a Court session took place in the morning or the afternoon. Second, nobody thought, for a moment, that Said should be found guily and his speedy comeback was welcomed as much as it was deserved.

Finally, and more importantly, it reminded us of the murky waters of troubled families where litigation is no holds barred and downright nasty and poor Chris Said who got sucked in. If there’s a lingering image of the state of broken families in Malta is the First Holy Communion in Dingli where a “re-union” dictated by the particular circumstances, ended in a free-for-all fist fight.

PMB DIVORCE

Which brings us to the landmark political event of the year: the presentation of a Private Member’s Bill on divorce by Jeffery Pullicino-Orlando. This was not the first PMB on the matter: Joe Brincat presented one in 1996. But if 1996 were bad timing, Pullicino-Orlando has shown himself to be shrewd.

Not that the whole thing has been seamless. The Pullicino-Orlando’s first motion was a copy-and-paste of Irish legislation. Thankfully, a second motion presented jointly with Evarist Bartolo, actually takes note of the fact that Malta has a civil code and a family law tradition of its own. Sadly, it gave the whole enterprise an “as we go along” kind of air.

Take, for example, the supposed way to the referendal poll booth. Pullicino-Orlando says that sometime between the bill’s second and third reading a provision will be made for the holding of the referendum and, if the result is in the affermative, MPs will (hopefully) for for it. On this he says he has the advice of Ian Refalo. So be it. In which case Prof Refalo would be kind to explain how the provisions of a bill can have the effect of law.

Nevertheless, this must have been the media event of 2010. True, the pro and contra of divorce we had already heard before but this time they came back with full force, accompanied by the issue whether the government or MPs had a mandate to enact such a piece of legislation. The answer to which is: yes, if precedent counts for anything; the infamous 1993 agreement with the Vatican did not feature in an electoral programme or a referendal question.

EXEUNT

The bell tolled and this time Prof Demarco couldn’t be late. Mgr Nikol Cauchi, whose manner you get to appreciate the more you listen to his successor, followed some months after.

Not quite the same place, but John Dalli and Louis Galea are off to Brussels and Luxembourg. Dalli promises to come back to the political fray in four years time. He’d be close to seventy by then.

RELIGION

The Pope came and went. Granted, Benedict does not have the crowd-pulling power of his predecessor (who can also be credited with being the first pontiff to visit Malta and to beatify the first three Maltese). But the papal visit was, er, overshadowed by the Luqa monument. Rome and the Vatican have their many marble nudes so why should ours be offensive? Just because it’s ceramic?

Pity because the Maltese visit was historic at least in one sense: for the first time the Pontiff had a private meeting with victims of pastoral abuse. The request for a meeting could have been brushed off in many ways. There were risks, at the time these were still allegations under investigation and the papal visit was short (on those grounds the Church authorities rightly brushed off the request for a meeting made by the Nevada Hindu guru who has now become a perennial niusance).

But it did happen. And by all accounts it was a success (well, as much success one can hope for in the circumstances). It might be the beginning of a long way in which the Church stops being so defensive or, worse, shifting the blame on others as did Cardinal Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State, when he blamed homosexuals on pastoral abuse.

ARTS AND CULTURE

Work on Piano’s design of City Gate began over an acute case of general echolalia involving works with the “-less” suffix. The theatre is “roofless”, the gate is “gateless” (has been for a couple of centuries or so) and the proposal “spineless”.

Two interesting developments. Labour, who had been mum for sometime noticed where the crowd was charging and placed itself at the head. Not in a very convinced manner, of course, just adopting the cliched (and wrong) calls for preserving “a 16th century baroque city”).

Second were the attempts to stop it. Film Director Mario Philip Azzopardi called for a collection to rebuild a theatre: €10 from 100,000 for five years. Azzopardi had big plans to mobilise the masses and even had the wording of the inauguration plaque ready. Emails, it has been said, streamed by the dozen. Contributions? Not so sure. Probably not even enough to pay for the inaugural plaque the wording on which he has already figured out.

Then there was “Stop Project Piano”, an anonymous internet initiative which set up a petition to call a referendum (which wasn’t doable). Pity those poor sods who gave their personal data to perfect strangers …

ikompli…

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Zolabytes is a rubrique on J’accuse – the name is a nod to the original J’accuser (Emile Zola) and a building block of the digital age (byte). Zolabytes is intended to be a collection of guest contributions in the spirit of discussion that has been promoted by J’accuse on the online Maltese political scene for 5 years.
Opinions expressed in zolabyte contributions are those of the author in question. Opinions appearing on zolabytes do not necessarily reflect the editorial line of J’accuse the blog.
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Party financing agreement a must

Two days ago we had a Zolabyte by PN MP Franco Debono who continues his quest for the regulation of party financing. Today we bring you a voice from the other side of the house. Labour MP Leo Brincat has been involved in the issue since the Galdes Report on party financing. Here he exposes the pitfalls of the process of regulation and points out what must be solved in order to move on. Is Labour’s Leo right in lamenting that “we are already too late”? (article reproduced with the kind permission of the author).

The article by Nationalist MP Franco Debono on party financing (September 8th) made interesting reading.

The core issue and problem is that, although he seems to believe that this is an urgent matter that needs to be dealt with without any further undue delay, I was never ever convinced of his own party’s commitment to plugging the gap of this democratic deficit.

I write through experience, having had the honour to serve as the Labour Party’s nominee on the ad hoc committee chaired by the late Anthony Galdes, a former civil servant and private sector senior executive of impeccable qualities and standards, that eventually led to the so-called Galdes Report.

There are various aspects that have continued to worry me and haunt me since.

Fifteen years have passed and the Nationalist government that has been at the helm of the country for more than 13 of these years never ever made any serious effort to conclude matters on this issue or legislate on the matter. Hardly ever did it, as a party, make any formal commitment to spell out its intentions on the subject and show it is prepared to go the whole hog to ensure that agreement will be finally reached on this important issue.

On the contrary, the perception the Nationalist Party would prefer to perpetrate the status quo continues to gain ground not only in political but also in commercial and entrepreneurial circles.

There is hardly any point in my colleague Dr Debono lamenting that no significant developments have taken place since 1995 and that no concrete measures have been implemented when there was never any real agreement on the document’s findings itself… something that left the implementation process as dead as a dodo from the word go.

In the run-up to the last election, the PL had committed itself publicly to implement the recommendations of the Galdes Commission on party financing while the general feeling now seems to be that one should take that report as the basis for moving ahead, given the decade and a half that have passed since then.

If one wants proof of the PN’s lack of real commitment on party financing one should scrutinise the fine details and the differences that actually derailed the Galdes Commission.

That the three established parties agree with the principle of transparency in party financing is not enough. As the adage goes, the devil is in the detail and, if my memory serves me well, the proposals put forward by the PN during the formulation of the Galdes report had made it clear they were only after piecemeal solutions that almost defeated the whole purpose of the exercise by ensuring that the parties in question will not optimise the potential benefit of such an accord.

It is interesting to note that, at the time, the commission had been made up of the PL (through yours truly), the PN, Alternattiva Demokratika and Dolores Cristina, who was an independent member and who, to be fair, gave many positive inputs throughout the various discussions we had.

Ironically, both the AD and the only independent member (Ms Cristina) had agreed at the time with the benchmarks proposed by the PL. It was the PN that had stalled the process.

The time is already overdue for such agreement to be reached on such an issue – regardless of whether there is a functioning parliamentary select committee or not – since, by next April, this government will have been in power for three years in this legislature. With elections then fast approaching it is more likely there will be more foot dragging by the government side to reach any form of agreement.

On the other hand, I feel one should also legislate concurrently on the expenditure limits and funding of political candidates too. This, not only to ensure a proper level playing field during election campaigns but also to ensure that certain candidates who might easily find their way to the House (again or for the first time) will not have any strings attached through contributions they received.

The capping of expenditure by political candidates must also be updated and revised upwards to a more realistic level to ensure that the existing laws will not continue to be flagrantly abused of as happens regularly in every election campaign.

In an interview published in another section of the media, Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando had been reported to have dropped the biggest hint to date that the government may be reconsidering its earlier opposition to the Galdes conclusions (September 26, 2007). Alas, since then, we have not seen any concrete proof of this, no matter how strongly Dr Pullicino Orlando might genuinely feel on the matter.

Now is the time for the three political parties to get real on the whole issue of political party financing.

The PL has already come forward with a 15-point plan on transparency, which many conveniently chose to either ignore, ridicule or downplay.

On the issue of party financing, people expect that, rather than having these parties disagreeing to agree, if they all believe strongly in transparency they should knock into place an agreement on party financing without further delay.

We are in my opinion already far too late.

Website: www.leobrincat.com

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Zolabytes is a rubrique on J’accuse – the name is a nod to the original J’accuser (Emile Zola) and a building block of the digital age (byte). Zolabytes is intended to be a collection of guest contributions in the spirit of discussion that has been promoted by J’accuse on the online Maltese political scene for 5 years.

Opinions expressed in zolabyte contributions are those of the author in question. Opinions appearing on zolabytes do not necessarily reflect the editorial line of J’accuse the blog. Accompanying images selected by J’accuse.
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Sliema: Reaping what was sown

AD Chairman and Michael Briguglio has given J’accuse permission to reproduce this article in the Zolabytes section. We consider it a further contribution on the current debate on Local Councils and an insiders insight on the mechanisms operating behind LC politics. Mike blogs regularly at Mike’s Beat (see j’accuse blogroll – we’re kicking that off again slowly slowly).

Sliema is really getting what it deserves. I am sorry to say this but the last local council elections were a clear example of how, at times, factors that have little to do with political vision influence electoral results. In a few words, Sliema is now reaping what was sown. I might be biased in saying this, given that I was not elected in 2009, having been elected in 2003 and 2006. But I invite others to contradict my statements below.

Beyond the battle between the official Nationalist Party position, the Nikki Dimech faction and the strange alliances of certain Labour councillors, one has to view the whole “Sliema” issue holistically.

Given the lack of proper legislation on financing of electoral campaigns, it is no surprise that political clientelism and business interests play a key role in Maltese politics even at a local level. Indeed, if one looks at the last local election in Sliema it would be very difficult to believe that all candidates’ electoral expenses were within the allowed limits. Many residents to this day tell me it is more than obvious that local elections are not based on a democratic and just level playing field.

In the last council election, one could witness social events such as receptions, the systematic provision of transport for elderly voters, electoral promises to various constituents that have nothing to do with political vision, telephone campaigns of the “Big Brother is watching you” type and so forth. There surely was no level playing field among all candidates.

This was even evident in the character-assassination-whispering-campaigns, at times between candidates belonging to the same party.

Given that Malta has practically no legislation regarding the financing of political parties, this necessarily leads to pressure from business interests for political favours. Hence, it is imperative that contracts awarded by local councils are properly scrutinised.

It is precisely for this reason that when I was councillor I consistently proposed having a contracts manager. I was supported by PN councillor Julian Galea on this… yet a decision by the council was consistently postponed.

Having professional administrative staff is imperative for efficient local councils. Yet, the present council apparently thought otherwise as one of its first decisions was to oust executive secretary Josef Grech.

The work of Mr Grech, his staff and of certain councillors, who, in previous years, did their best to ensure that Sliema’s voice was heard and who worked as a team, was basically discarded.

As for myself, in my six years as councillor I worked as hard as possible to help improve the quality of life in Sliema. I gave priority to issues such as public consultation, sustainable development, the impact of construction on the community, waste management, pollution, public transport, swimming and animal welfare. I worked well with coun­cillors irrespective of their political affiliation and I often managed to convince both Nationalist and Labour council members on various issues.

Well, actually, in my eyes, there were “four” political parties in the council, namely, Green, Labour, the PN “Pullicino faction” and the PN “Arrigo faction”. Perhaps the most surreal experience of all was when certain PN councillors objected that the council should praise the government for the reclaiming and embellishment of St Anne Square!

I thought I would get my best result ever in 2009 but the opposite happened. I was obviously disappointed and I was about to quit politics, feeling a sense of freedom in the process… But, as philosopher Louis Althusser tells us, “the future lasts a long time” … Indeed, I changed my mind after a few weeks and ended being elected AD chairman.

Whenever I am stopped by Sliema residents who complain about all sorts of issues, I remind them of a powerful tool they still possess – the vote.

If you want change, vote for it…

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Zolabytes is a rubrique on J’accuse – the name is a nod to the original J’accuser (Emile Zola) and a building block of the digital age (byte). Zolabytes is intended to be a collection of guest contributions in the spirit of discussion that has been promoted by J’accuse on the online Maltese political scene for 5 years.

Opinions expressed in zolabyte contributions are those of the author in question. Opinions appearing on zolabytes do not necessarily reflect the editorial line of J’accuse the blog.
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Book Burners and Antipodi

Publisher Chris Gruppetta gives us his thoughts, prophecies and ideas on the forthcoming Vella Gera novel “L-Antipodi” along with a few lessons to the “book burning brigade. Enjoy this Zolabyte.
Don’t worry, it’s not yet-another-article on Li Tkisser Sewwi …
The Maltese Book-Burning Brigade must be in a pickle right now. You see, one of their lead arguments when inciting and applauding the prosecution of author Alex Vella Gera and editor Mark Camilleri for the short story Li Tkisser Sewwi, was that this was not literature, but smut. “ ’tis vulgar and obscene, unredeemed by literary merit” — “It can’t be compared to Irvine Welsh, whose books are works of literature” — “this is just obscenity for the sake of titillation and disgust”

What on earth, now, will they make of this? On the 22nd August, Vella Gera will be launching his latest novel, L-Antipodi, the first chapter of which is circulating on the internet. And having read this teaser, I dare anyone to say this is not literature. Beautifully crafted, with pitch-perfect dialogue, smoothly executed time-shifts, and an underlying sadness and maturity that haunts, this first chapter will be a tough act to follow. Of course, not having yet laid my hands on the rest of the novel, it could well turn out to be a hopeless anti-climax. It could, but I’d be extremely surprised if it were.

I am not necessarily a Vella Gera fan. I passed on his first novel, and subsequently I vehemently argued against the censorship of his short story in Realtà, but not on the grounds of artistic merit. If anything, my point was that we should not seek to defend his right to freedom of expression by hiding behind “artistic merit”, as if only great writing were allowed to be explicit and direct.

Yet this first chapter includes – though not in the quantity and intensity of Li Tkisser Sewwi – a number of explicit phrases, including the dreaded “ħexa” word and stuff being shoved in and out. So now I am looking forward to hearing the Taleban Brigade’s take on this. Will they deem this novel acceptable because its bona fide literary value cancels out the occasionally explicit language? Unlikely. Or will they furiously backpedal, now claiming that even in the case of works of literary merit, a Disney-level curfew should be imposed? “No kissing unless it’s a caste peck on the lips.”

Whatever they say or do, Vella Gera’s new novel will fly off the shelves. Irrespective of content, that was bound to happen the minute Realtà got slapped with the ban. That, dear Book-Burning Brigade, is the ultimate utilitarian reason for not banning books: it tends to backfire, giving the author reams of free publicity and ensuring his presence in the bestseller lists. However it would be a great pity if L-Antipodi were to sell out merely because of the curiosity effect. The first chapter at least, is a solid work of literature – ranking among the most interesting novel-openers this year – that deserves to be read by all Maltese literature fans.

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Zolabytes is a rubrique on J’accuse – the name is a nod to the original J’accuser (Emile Zola) and a building block of the digital age (byte). Zolabytes is intended to be a collection of guest contributions in the spirit of discussion that has been promoted by J’accuse on the online Maltese political scene for 5 years.

Opinions expressed in zolabyte contributions are those of the author in question. Opinions appearing on zolabytes do not necessarily reflect the editorial line of J’accuse the blog.
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