Edward Scicluna challenges Abela’s authority on €138,000 job

Central Bank Governor and former Finance Minister Edward Scicluna has told Prime Minister Robert Abela in no uncertain terms that he will not be standing down despite mounting pressure for him to resign following his indictment over the hospitals deal.

Central Bank sources told The Shift that over the past days, Scicluna had various conversations with Abela and some of his Ministers, in which he insisted that he won’t budge, arguing that they have no authority to remove him.

According to Scicluna, only EU institutions can remove him from office as his role falls under the control of the EU Treaties as part of the European monetary system.

The sources claimed that Scicluna is adamant that he did not do anything wrong as he was completely excluded from disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat’s “kitchen cabinet” when important decisions were discussed and sealed.

The sources said Scicluna is also mulling the possibility of challenging an eventual Cabinet decision forcing his removal from office through a lawsuit asking for hundreds of thousands in compensation.

Mounting pressure

Pressure has been increasing on the 78-year-old Governor to resign after the Court decided he must stand trial on criminal charges, together with former Minister Chris Fearne and others, including his former permanent secretary Alfred Camilleri.

The Office of the Prime Minister has been busy leaking stories to the traditional media to put more pressure on the former Finance Minister. The latest was a threat that Scicluna would be sacked by the Cabinet if he didn’t resign on his own steam by Tuesday.

Although Scicluna argued that Robert Abela did not have the legal power to sack him, legal sources said that this was a case of interpretation.

“The Central Bank government is appointed by the President of Malta on the advice of the Cabinet. It is only logical that the same Cabinet can recommend his removal even if this is not specified in the Central Bank Act,” a veteran constitutional lawyer told The Shift.

At the same time, there are examples of Central Bank Governors removed by their governments but shielded by the top echelons in Frankfurt.

According to the Central Bank law, “A director (including a Governor) may be relieved of his office on the grounds of inability to perform the functions of his office, or of misbehaviour; and for the purposes of this sub-article, repeated unjustified non-attendance of Board meetings may deem to amount misbehaviour.”

€138,000, three pensions and a wealth portfolio

Edward Scicluna is known among his colleagues as someone who always pursues well-paid positions.

Following a career of economic consultancies, mostly to the PN administrations, for which he was paid hundreds of thousands of euro for producing various reports and assessments, Scicluna contested the MEP elections at 69 years old on the Labour ticket. He was elected.

In 2013, he contested the general elections and was made Finance Minister in the government of disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat.

In 2020, upon the changing of the guard at Castille, Scicluna was told to make way so that Robert Abela could put his chief of staff, Clyde Caruana, at the Finance Ministry.

However, Scicluna resisted and brokered a deal with Abela to be made Central Bank Governor instead.

Scicluna hit the headlines in 2020 when he told the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry that he was more interested in saving his well-paid job and position than carrying political responsibility and resigning due to decisions made behind his back.

“I left a €100,000 job as an MEP and my comfort zone,” he told a stunned panel of Judges to justify his lack of political action to stop abuse when he was Minister. “Why should I resign because someone else did wrong?” he told the inquiry.

Now, at 78, Edward Scicluna has received three different pensions in addition to his remuneration as a Central Bank Governor and another €12,000 until last week as an MFSA board member.

Aside from his normal National Insurance pension, which is available to all who pay their contributions, Scicluna also receives an uncapped pension as a former Minister, usually in the region of some €35,000 a year, and another as a former MEP.

According to his latest available declaration of assets, which dates back to 2020, when he was still a political figure, Scicluna possesses a wealthy portfolio, which, in addition to property, includes €700,000 in bank deposits and another €150,000 in bonds.