Personal assistant and a diplomatic passport: Abela discloses Muscat’s severance package

Former prime minister Joseph Muscat has been afforded the service of a public official and has retained his diplomatic passport as part of his severance package following his resignation in January 2020.

The package, approved in December 2019 at the height of public protests against his administration, includes unspecified “other protocol facilities” with the diplomatic passport.

Muscat also enjoys the use of a paid car and driver as well as the “use of a second car”, presumably that which his wife Michelle uses.

On the technology front, Abela informed the House in answer to a parliamentary question tabled by opposition MP Graham Bencini, the disgraced former prime minister is being provided with two landlines and an internet connection, a computer with a printer and scanner and his mobile phone expenses are covered up to a maximum of € 2,330 per year.

The perks are over and above the “use of an office”, that at Sa Maison where he is conducting his private consultancy business, and a terminal benefit or transitional allowance.

The terminal benefit, Abela explained, covered the period from 1 October 2008, when Muscat had been appointed opposition leader until his last day as prime minister on 12 January 2020.

Muscat has explained in the past that he had been given a single payment of €120,128.40 and that he waived other transitional allowances for time served as opposition leader and prime minister between 2008 and 2020. He has said €41,633 in tax had been deducted, leaving him with a balance of €78,495.40.

Muscat had, however, changed the policy of terminal benefits for those occupying Cabinet positions just before his departure in 2019, which resulted in a more substantial golden handshake for him – possibly double what he’d have been entitled to under the original arrangements.

Muscat’s termination benefits were calculated back to when he was opposition leader, according to the OPM’s eventual response to The Shift’s Freedom of Information requests.

Muscat had referred to a Cabinet memo drawn up by a Nationalist administration that determined terminal and transitional benefits for Cabinet members who lose their position either through their resignation, sacking, or a change in government.

But even when you take all years Muscat was referring to into consideration – October 2008 to January 2020 – Muscat should have received around €60,000, not €120,000, according to the PN Cabinet memo to which Muscat referred.