A series of social media posts posted by opposition party PN in the immediate aftermath of the annual budget held on Monday October 27 sparked a debate over pay raises for Malta’s Cabinet ministers.
The posts compared the weekly COLA increase (cost-of-living adjustment, a sum handed out to compensate for inflation) given to citizens to a heftier salary raise to be received by Malta’s Cabinet next year.
The posts claimed that “each minister received a raise of €1,700 each year” in last week’s budget, far higher than the weekly €4.66 COLA increase the public will receive.
While this is true, the claim fails to mention that the increases are part of a broader collective agreement for all public officials, including PN’s own MPs, which was signed in late 2024.
In November 2024, shortly after last year’s budget, the government signed a €1.3 billion collective agreement granting 33,000 public service workers a pay bump and improved working conditions. The agreement came into force at the beginning of this year.
This collective agreement has also impacted those appointed in Malta’s top constitutional roles, from cabinet members to the leader of the opposition, the president and members of the judiciary, all of whose basic salaries are pegged to the highest level of the government’s pay scale.
The new pay scales, published as part of Monday’s budget estimates, indicate the extent of the salary increases, with the government’s top pay scale rising from an annual pay of €50,356 in 2024 to €51,893 in 2026.
The prime minister’s salary is pegged at 125% of the top civil service pay scale, meaning his basic salary is set to rise from just under €63,000 to almost €64,900.
Ministers receive 110% of the highest pay scale, so they will see their salary rise by just shy of €1,700, from almost €55,400 to a little over €57,000. The speaker of the House will receive a similar raise.
The leader of the opposition will also get a pay raise of a little over €1,500, now set to earn a little under €52,000.
The increase will also apply to all members of parliament, given that their salaries are pegged at 50% of the highest civil service salary scale. MPs will see their salary rise by a little over €750 from 2024 to 2026.
Others will receive slightly larger pay bumps. The president will see her salary rise by roughly €2,600, while the chief justice and judges will all receive a raise of roughly €2,000.
The revised salaries caught the attention of PN on budget day, with the party promptly noting that the €4.66 COLA increase given to citizens paled in comparison to the €1,700 salary raise received by ministers.
This is not the first time that a new public service collective agreement has raised questions over the salaries of top public officials.
In 2019, the standards commissioner had launched an investigation after receiving complaints that the government had secretly raised Cabinet members’ salaries.
The investigation dismissed the complaints, finding that the salary increases had stemmed from a highly-publicised collective agreement signed two years earlier.
