Charter flight and pocket money paid by taxpayers for mayors’ botched papal audience

Taxpayers paid for a chartered KM Malta Airlines flight and €460 subsistence allowances for each local government representative who travelled to Rome expecting a private audience with Pope Leo XIV that never happened, The Shift has learned.

Sources close to the Local Councils’ Association confirmed that public funds covered the trip, including chartering an entire aircraft to transport the large delegation.

Representatives received a €460 allowance each to cover accommodation and subsistence during their two-night stay, leaving them to choose their preferred hotel.

No  explanation was given of how the visit served local government, why such a large delegation was necessary, or what benefit taxpayers were expected to receive.  The total bill remains undisclosed.

The trip was organised by the Local Councils’ Association with assistance from Malta’s Ambassador to the Holy See, Frank Zammit.

Members of the delegation, which included Labour and Nationalist mayors, said the promised private audience did not take place. Instead, they attended the Pope’s general audience alongside other visitors.

The failed meeting left organisers facing questions that went beyond their disappointment at being denied access to the pontiff, with other councillors, who were left out of the trip now questioning who approved the expenditure, which public budget financed it, and why the visit was considered official local government business.

Councillors who spoke to The Shift questioned whether the trip had a legitimate council purpose and whether the spending was justified.

Malta’s Local Government Act allows councils to enter into transactions connected with the exercise of their statutory functions. Its standing orders also set out procedures for approving payments.

Describing a visit as an official delegation does not, by itself, establish that those requirements were met. Nor does a council’s approval resolve whether the expenditure served a lawful council function.

Councillors said that while the cancellation of a planned meeting does not automatically make spending authorised beforehand unlawful, organisers still need to explain the original public purpose and the basis for financing the delegation.

The large delegation was also accompanied by the Local Government Minister Alison Zerafa Civelli, the Prime Minister’s sister-in-law.