Why are Ambassador Clifford Borg Marks and High Commissioner Charles Muscat receiving special allowances when they live in China and Australia anyway?
Malta’s ambassador to China, Clifford Borg Marks, who has lived in China for most of his life, is receiving a special allowance that is greater than his salary.
So is Malta’s high commissioner in Australia, Charles Muscat, who has lived in Canberra since the 1970s and owns a business there.
And so is Norman Hamilton, Malta’s high commissioner in London, though he and his wife spend most of their time in Malta.
True, their salary is on the low side for that position, at €34,684, but the solution to that is to fix it, not to use discretion in loading up allowances for the people we like most, and giving smaller allowances to those we like less.
Though she has been posted to one of the most expensive cities in the world, our woman in Washington, Marisa Micallef, has an allowance of just Eur 19,728 compared to Norman Hamilton’s Eur38,418 in London.
Foreign Minister George Vella gave the information in parliament after having it asked of him by Nationalist MP Marthese Portelli.
The basic annual salary of ambassadors is at scale 3 of the public service, and is revised every year by collective agreement. They all receive a ‘representation allowance’ of €3,261, and other allowances are discretionary.
Curiously enough, the highest allowances are paid to appointees who were already living in the countries to which they were ‘posted’ and who have their homes there: Borg Marks in China and Muscat in Australia. Oh yes, and to Norman Hamilton, who is posted to London but insists on spending most of his time at home in Malta.
8 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
Is Keith Azzopardi pregnant? The annotation against his name in the Children Allowance column reads ‘not yet’.
The post of High Commisioner in London is vital for the Maltese economy.
The incumbent is expected to be there.
He should only avail himself of three weeks vacation per year like everyone else in the public service.
But then this is a bidu gdid and a direzzjoni gdida, meritocrazija and a disastru assolut.
Try telling that to an ex-DJ of The Golden Years.
He prefers to be here till the air clears up. He might have conflict of interest being in the country of our chief and main source of tourist resource. He might have conflicts of interest, he being in the travel industry.
In certain cases the need to grease the wheels into motion may cost more than in others where it mightn’t hold, and especially where strategy, integrity and a cohesive policy is sorely below that handled with a proper effective set of diplomatic tools.
I notice that the list omits name/s of persons already announced as ambassadors.
What is the reason?
Perhaps the question did not seek information on the ambassadors who are non-resident, but it would be interesting to know what emoluments they receive.
41. 5 K Euros is practially twice the salary that Maltese embassies pay to their office staff.
Career diplomats aside you could easily mistake the rest for a who’s who in the Labour Party. But then that’s meritocracy and going by meritocracy standards, today we also had the Deputy Mayor of Pembroke nicely appointed to a top job at Wasteserv. Naturally Labour. Lovely.