Overcompensated government directors have not returned extra thousands

Several government-appointed directors who were found paying themselves thousands of extra euros for which they were not eligible, have been let off the hook and not asked to reimburse the additional remuneration.

Questioned about a recent National Audit Office report that found the government-appointed directors of Malta Government Investments “granted themselves additional allowances and benefits that were not provided for in the applicable rules”, Minister Silvio Schembri simply told Opposition MP Albert Buttigieg that “changes have been affected at the company following the NAO findings, including at CEO and chairmanship levels”.

The minister did not, however, provide parliament with information on whether the unapproved thousands of euros the NAO found the directors paid themselves would be returned.

According to the latest corporate filings at the Malta Business Registry, the government changed the board’s chairman, Adrian Said, and CEO, Herald Bonnici, after the NAO’s findings.

Minister Schembri has now appointed former Central Bank of Malta employee Jesmond Gatt as MGI chairman. Gatt was also recently proposed as a replacement for outgoing Malta Financial Services Authority chairman John Mamo.

Further research shows that Said, who had been given various government appointments by disgraced minister Konrad Mizzi soon after Labour was returned to power, is still serving as a government-appointed director at the Commonwealth Trade Financial Facility Limited.

According to the NAO, the remuneration and benefits of the company’s board of directors were not in line with regulations. In 2021, the six member-board was collectively found to have been paid €64,000 over and above their entitlements.

€30,000 of that amount was packaged as a “subsidiary allowance” for attending the company’s annual general meeting.

An additional €19,000 was found to have been paid as “director’s allowances”, with the NAO unable to find any documentation detailing what the allowance was covering.

Among the directors who received the questionable allowances was Labour backbench MP Davina Sammut Hili.