UPDATED: Edward Scicluna steps aside while keeping his salary

Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malta Alexander Demarco will replace Edward Scicluna as he faces criminal charges related to the hospitals concession, the government has announced.

Scicluna, a former finance minister, signed off on a deal the court ruled fraudulent and annulled following a case filed by the Opposition. Despite having to step aside, Scicluna will retain his salary –  a move the Opposition said reflected the prime minister’s weakness.

The hospitals deal was made by the administration of disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat, involving his ‘star minister’ Konrad Mizzi and Muscat’s chief of staff Keith Schembri. All are facing criminal charges in relation to the sell-out of Malta’s public hospitals to Vitals Global Healthcare, which was then shifted to Steward Health Care, a US company facing a probe by the US Senate.

Scicluna, 78, insisted he would not resign, but a Tuesday cabinet meeting appeared to have reached a compromise with the Governor.

“The Cabinet has noted Prof Edward Scicluna’s request to European Central Bank Governor Christine Lagarde that he will no longer execute his function as Central Bank Governor as long as he continues to face charges in court,” the government said in a statement.

It added that the Cabinet “recognises Scicluna’s decision was in the national interest”, although his €138,000 salary for doing nothing while facing criminal charges may not be the case.

Prime Minister Robert Abela insisted on “the presumption of innocence” despite a four-year magisterial inquiry that showed Scicluna had signed the deal as finance minister.

Prior to the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Scicluna remained defiant to calls for his resignation from the post, saying independent institutions like the Central Bank play by their “own rules”.

He insisted that neither the government nor the opposition could force him to resign.

Calls for his resignation have increased since the court ruled there was enough evidence for him to face criminal charges on the deals he signed as finance minister.

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

Following a career of economic consultancies, mainly 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 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, in the finance ministry.

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.

Scicluna receives 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, from which he was forced to resign.

Aside from his National Insurance pension, 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.