My God, how cheap – what other ways has he devised of making money off his premiership?
In response to a question put to him in parliament by new Nationalist Party MP Claudette Buttigieg (we girls know where the tellingly important issues are), the prime minister has been forced to admit that rather than using an official prime ministerial limo, he is getting an allowance – Eur35,000 over five years – for using his own car (and sticking a flag on it when the prime minister is in residence as distinct from daddy taking the girls to ballet or football when, we hope, the flag comes off again).
So in effect, the prime minister is renting his personal family car to the state, and getting paid for it. Won’t this be saving the state some money, given that a prime ministerial limo probably costs more than Eur7000 a year to run? Not necessarily, and in any case, that’s not the point.
The point is that the prime minister has devised a way of giving himself more disposable income by reducing the running costs of his household to the tune of Eur7,000. If he used a prime ministerial limo, it would make no difference to his pocket. He would still have to pay for the running costs of his own car.
And in any case, there is no saving to the state. The prime ministerial limo which his predecessor used is there already. If it is left to sit in a garage, then it is a wasted depreciating asset. And if it is given to some other cabinet minister for his use, then it is way too ‘important’ a car for that purpose and they are all going to want the same.
The information given in reply to Ms Buttigieg’s question is not specific enough, though. What does this allowance cover – mere rental? One takes it for granted that the petrol and maintenance costs for Joseph and Michelle’s family car will be paid for by the state over and above that Eur7,000 a year.
There’s something else that needs to be cleared up here. Is that car actually Joseph and Michelle’s – as in, do they actually own it as an asset or is it leased to them by a leasing company?
This is a crucial distinction.
If it is leased, then the state should be leasing it directly from the leasing company, and not leasing it from Joseph and Michelle who in turn have it on lease themselves.
In an election campaign interview, Joseph Muscat said that the most expensive thing he ever bought in his entire life was a handbag for Michelle. We know already that his parents paid for his house and pool (it’s an extension of their own home) when he was in his early 20s.
So he did not pay for his car either (or his wife’s). Handbags can be pretty pricey, but even a bespoke Hermes Kelly won’t have cost as much as his car – not that this is the kind of bag Mrs Muscat goes for, as it is way too understated and isn’t immediately recognisable on the Maltese hustings.
In any case, the state should never be paying the prime minister for use of his family car as his official limousine. It’s totally unacceptable, like so much else of what the new Labour government has done.
I suppose Eur7000 a year will buy at least an annual seven of the sort of handbags I’ve noticed Mrs Muscat wearing. But a word of advice: they should be smaller.
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http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-04-23/news/pm-to-net-35000-in-five-years-for-use-of-personal-car-1447723008/
http://zekzik.com/2013/04/23/tal-alfa-joseph-qed-idahhal-iktar-milli-tiswa/
Hi Daphne,
Good evening. There was an article in the TImes with regards to some Maltese applying to go an live on Mars. Would you consider that for yourself ?
[Daphne – No. Far too many people would be utterly devastated, and some, like you, would be totally bereft.]
Johnny, Mars is known as the RED planet. So if anyone should consider going there it should be you or your sawn-off leader.
Johnny, why not suggest to Joseph Muscat to send a Laburist to Mars. It is the only place that the Labour Party hasn’t got one of their own
Be careful of people who start their emails with ‘Hello, how are you’ or ‘good evening’, such as the person above.
But now he’s Malta’s first EMPEROR,so he does as he pleases.
Thankfully, he doesn’t go around n the buff.
Vote Socialist, get oligarchs.
If he’d sold it to the state, as opposed to lending it at a fee, the saving would have been considerable:
http://zekzik.com/2013/04/23/tal-alfa-joseph-qed-idahhal-iktar-milli-tiswa/
Mela Muscat kien weghdna li ma kienx se jghati zieda lilu nnifsu ta’ 500 euro. Sewwa qal ghax zieda lilu nnifsu ta’ 7000 euro. Najs kemm jaf naghmel is-sommom!
As the saying goes, ‘never look at the basic wage, always scrutinise the perks’.
Ass-licker Frank Portelli is doing his best to defend Joseph Muscat on TVHEMM. Still busy touting his hospital, no doubt.
There should have been a call for tenders if a decision was taken to lease a prime ministerial limo rather than buy one or use the existing one.
It is completely incorrect for the state – this should not be a unilateral prime ministerial decision – to do this any other way.
If our PM is so ready to push aside basic ethical considerations to grab what he can for himself, what will he do when bigger and better opportunities begin to present themselves, as they inevitably will?
And Karmenu Vella drives himself. Surely not to save the government some money but because he promised half a dozen people that they will be his driver. In order not to quarrel with them he chose none
Amateurs! These things are just not done even had the country gained financially. No one decent around the PM to give him some sound advice.
Frank, you have lost the little credibility that you had. What a shame to come to this end.
Is Joseph Muscat expecting the refund of VAT on this car as well?
Yes, he is entitles to the refund if it comes through because the car is still registered in his name.
But, and this is a big but, an equivalent car with less mileage bought through Autotrader.co.uk would cost the government. 6500 euro ONCE.
In the PM’s case we are paying him 35,000 euro over 5 years, and he gets to keep the car at the end of it. Shame on him? Shame on us for putting up with it.
To think that I had originally thought that Joey was desperate to become prime minister for the glory of it.
How wrong I was. His only intention it seems, is to make himself and his friends, as much money as possible.
I sincerely hope that the people (those with a bit of brains, that is) who wanted to try him for a change are really pleased with themselves.
Iva issa jiehdu dal kollu li pretendew minghand il PN.
Good one !
Daphne, he lied when he said that he never bought anything more expensive than his wife’s handbag. Look at this clip. The car is his. His and his wife’s car cost 75,000 euros (viva l-fireworks).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNNFfXXSgs8
He wants a refund of VAT on the Alfa (by the way, what happened to that promise?). Now he is also getting a refund of the full value of the car and more than that (in the video he said he had bought it for Lm10,000)! He wants 35,000 euro when he is claiming that the car cost 23,000. What a fraudster!
Another issue which is at stake here is transparency. Why did we get the info only after a Nationalist MP asked for it? Is he hiding some other income which we still have to get to know about? This is arrogance at its best.
This is just as much as the arrogance shown in the Mercieca case. We got to know that Mercieca was granted a concession to practice his profession only after being asked by journalists. If it were to them, they would have told no-one about this ‘porkerija’. Tal-misthija.
They use to make an issue about everything. Ippokresija grassa.
“Another issue which is at stake here is transparency. Why did we get the info only after a Nationalist MP asked for it? Is he hiding some other income which we still have to get to know about? This is arrogance at its best.”
Precisely. He paid euro 35,000 to himself “behind the people’s back.” Probably even behind the back of his own cabinet. Remember his fuss about the PN cabinet ministers paying themselves euro 500 “behind the people’s back”?
Labour hypocrisy at its worst.
And apart from Joseph Muscat using his car and receiving €7,000 per annum (presumably plus petrol + maintenance + licence + insurance + regular car wash), the media report that “A car was rented to the Parliamentary Secretary for Planning at €59 every day” i.e. €21,535 per annum.
Joseph Muscat is the only PM in the world to rent out his car to the Government. Wow,,,how entrepreneurial. The cheek and total disregard of ethics is boundless.
At the back of the photo (near the Post Office) shown above, there is a reserved parking for OPM and a motorcycle is occupying it. By any chance, is that Michelle’s means of transport??
If I’m not mistaken that’s a second hand UK car on which he’s expecting to get a refund on VAT paid.
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2009/05/joseph-and-michelle-spend-eur60000-on-cars/
35000 euros is around seven times what that car’s market value is. Not a bad deal at all.
Alfa Romeos are notorious for their high rate of depreciation. They are just glorified Fiats (nowadays) and basically lousy cars.
I will lease my car to the Malta Government for 7000 euros a year anytime.
May I add that it is not an Alfa Romeo.
It is a far better and superior car in all respects and according to all expert opinion.
Any offers?
Malta taghna lkoll.
The problem here is someone who buys an Alfa and gets others to drive it.
I mean, what’s the point?
Which is exactly why we need a strong opposition, to question these things and not work hand in hand with government as Joseph Muscat suggests so he can get away with them.
Joseph Muscat is already giving himself an extra 500 euros, or more per week: 7,000 euros per year for using his own car plus his wife’s salary (for doing nothing) surely amount to at least 26,000 euros per annum.
And there might be other increments that he has had that we ar not even aware of.
Honesty is an expensive gift, so don’t expect it from cheap people.
Just in case anyone is interested in buying an Alfa like our beloved prime minister’s, it costs as much as he’s getting from the state for its use for a year.
Very soon he will receive a VAT refund of thousands of Euros on this car. He applied with other thousands of car owner which will cost the goverment around 40 million.
http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/advertgallery/1300630/7
Do the rules allow something like this?
Can Ministers rent their own offices to serve as Ministries and their houses to serve as official residences to Government?
Can the President rent his own house to the State (and still live in it) instead of spending five years at the Palace in Attard?
What about wear-and-tear, Deafley, hi. All they need is to set up a leasing company and start paying VAT. Dak kollu.
Wara kollox, Claudette Buttigieg mhux dik li tkanta d-Desire?
U mela allura!
[Daphne – You seem a little bored, Kevin. Sharon too busy playing with Jeffrey, is she? Not that it’s any of our business, of course.]
It would take a bored Laburist to reason like that.
What they REALLY need to do is shed the scrounging attitude and set a proper example to the ship of fools who ape anything their master does.
Hi Malta,
I would like to rent my car to the Government for EUR 7000 a year and keep driving it. (If need be, I’ll have a little Maltese flag fixed on the front mudguard.)
Then, I would like to rent my office to the Government for EUR 24,000 a year and keep using it. (If need be, I’ll have a big Maltese flag hoisted on the facade.)
Lastly, I would like to rent my house to the Government for EUR 18,000 a year and keep living in it. (If need be, I’ll have the emblem of the Republic affixed above the front door.)
I think that way I will have contributed nicely and positively to Malta being taghna lkoll.
Thanks.
P.S.
I am also thinking of renting my clothes (not only tuxedo, but all of them) to the Government for EUR 240 a piece a year and keep wearing them. (If need be, I’ll have a small Maltese flag lapel stuck in the button hole.)
I would also like to rent my wife to the Government of Malta, even for EUR 12 a year, but she’s just told me that she can’t cook gingerbread man biscuits, and she would therefore be precluded from this beneficial scheme. I’m thinking of writing to Mr Mario Cutajar to rectify the matter.
Mbaghad ghamlu plejtu fuq amateur reproduction ta’ arlogg. Vera wicchom u x’imkien iehor l-istess. Zibel!
Hallihom msieken, dawk minghalihom li repro jiswa’ daqs l-originali.
Kull ma jinterresahom apparenza bazwija li tingharaf mal-ewwel daqqa t’ghajn.
L-imbarazz li rajtom jahtfu waqt l-irkanti. ‘Ghax qisu gdid kemm hu kondizzjoni tajba’. U jekk jiehdu xi haga ghar-restawr jispiccaw iqaxxru kwalunkwe patina.
Allahares wicc ikun uzat, inizzluh bis-sander u jtuh l-aktar vernic ileqq. French polish, bjankett, vina mpittra?, dik nehhiha, m’hemmx x’taghmel.
U ghax rhama, vina mitlufa xi mitejn sena’ ilu tkun mxaqqa’ jarmuha u jaqtghu wahda tac-Cina. (Mhux ghax mic-Cina mhux rham, imma nghid jien, x’ghandu x’jaqsam?) Ovvjament skond il-hxuna li ssib illum.
Tal-biza’.
Everyone seems to be forgetting that when Dr.J.Muscat was Leader of the Opposition he made use of his private car. MP Claudette Buttigieg should put in a PQ asking Dr.J.Muscat if he has been receiving any allowances for his private car ever since he became Leader of the Opposition.
The former Leader of the Opposition engaged a driver at the expense of the taxpayer and then assigned him to CEO duties at the party HQ.
“Jien ma dhaltx fil-politika ghal-flus”
Joseph Muscat (Mass Meeting Mqabba)
Is it true that he is doing this “in terms of a system introduced by the previous government”? This is what The Times quoted.
Is this the same guy who made such a fuss about Tonio’s clock?
Do we remember how we had to listen to news headlines about expensive presents over and over again?
Many people are finding it very convenient to forget all that has been said in the weeks before the elections. Is it that long ago?
So the new Prime Minister has his private car ‘impressed’ for the new Prime Minister and paid for, and the money goes to Joseph Muscat (the new Prime Minister).
Any idea if KMB and Sant also received a car allowance for use of their own car? Is this a Labour thing?
It is obvious that the money he earned as an MEP was much more than Prime Minister of Malta.
So he has to make up the difference somehow.