Updated 4.45pm
The Opposition Leader on Thursday said he will not accept his new salary increase, claiming he was not consulted about the decision.
In a post on social media, Alex Borg called on the government to withdraw the parliamentary salary increase. While the rise applies to him as well, he said he would not accept it.
“Even though this applies to me, I don’t agree with this increase at all, especially when you consider that they are giving people €4.66 a week, which, above and beyond, they will also have to pay their taxes.”
He appealed to the Prime Minister to withdraw the salary increase for himself, ministers and parliamentary secretaries.
The €4.66 increase he referred to was the cost-of-living adjustment given to citizens, a figure that appears small in comparison to the €1,700 raise received by ministers or the €1,500 allocated to the opposition leader himself.
The pay increase was part of a collective agreement signed in November 2024, shortly after last year’s Budget. The €1.3 billion agreement granted 33,000 public service workers a salary increase and improved working conditions. It came into force at the start of this year.
It remains unclear how Borg intends to refuse the increase, since the payments are processed automatically. His predecessor, Bernard Grech, in theory along with all members of parliament on both sides of the House, would also have benefited from the same increase.
Borg said that after Monday’s parliamentary session, he made his position clear to One, the Labour Party’s media outlet, which he claimed chose not to publish his response.
In a statement, the Nationalist Party called on One to “be serious in their work and, instead of serving a false agenda, to serve their viewers by telling them the truth.”
The PN accused the PL and its media of “manipulation” by concealing the measure.
“Labour is disconnected from the people, detached from reality, and constantly tries to shift blame for its own actions onto others,” PN said.
The Labour Party released their own statement in response, saying, “If Alex Borg truly had a problem with salary increases, he should have renounced the raise he took for himself from his first day as an MP”
Furthermore, the Labour Party perceived his statement as an attack on Civil Service Workers.
“First he accused them of not working, and now he doesn’t even want them to benefit from the increases granted by a Labour Government through the best collective agreement ever reached for workers who serve our country,” the PL said.
PL president Alex Sciberras slammed Borg’s statement, and questioned whether he was prepared not only to refund the increases he received as an MP but to ask the president, judges, magistrates, the former opposition leader and his own parliamentary group to do the same.
“The only one who is in an ivory tower, cut off form the people, is Alex Borg,” Sciberras said in a Facebook post.
“Leadership is not about prepared answers. It is about listening. It is about dialogue. And having the courage to stand in front of the public even when the questions are difficult. Malta deserves leadership that looks the public in the eye, not just at the camera,” he continued.
