Luciano Busuttil stays on the gravy train, reappointed as Commissioner for Justice

Former MP Luciano Busuttil is still riding the state gravy train, after choosing to not contest the 2017 election, and has just been given a two-year reappointment as a Commissioner for Justice.

Busuttil’s reappointment comes on top of the over €350,000 Busuttil has earned by providing consultancy services to no less than eight different ministries since 2018.

His two-year reappointment as one of Malta’s Commissioners for Justice comes with a €12,000 annual remuneration. Dr Anna Mallia was also reappointed as a Commissioner for Justice.

Busuttil, who was rarely out of the public eye between 2008 and 2017 for one reason or another, had chosen to not contest the 2017 general election because, he said, he was tired of “being treated like a prostitute” for votes.

But, since then, the practising lawyer has been paid handsomely by the state. Information provided by various ministries to Parliament shows Busuttil was remunerated the most by the Education Ministry, which paid him a total of €142,494 for his services.

That was followed by the Foreign Affairs Ministry (€85,332), where he was taken on by former minister Carmelo Abela as a person of trust six months after the June 2017 general election that he did not contest.

The Office of the Prime Minister also paid Busuttil €59,609 over the time frame. Busuttil had canvassed for Prime Minister Robert Abela during his Labour Party leadership campaign in 2020.

Later that year he was given a direct order by the OPM of close to €22,000 to provide legal services for the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development.

The overall sum also includes a direct order from the OPM of €30,000 for the provision of unspecified legal services.

When the second foreign ministry contract elapsed in January 2020, Busuttil was made an umpire at the Department of Social Security’s Office of the Umpire, where people can have their complaints over being denied certain social security benefits heard, between 2020 and 2022.

For those services, Busuttil was paid an honorarium of just under €11,500.

Busuttil had also served as SportMalta chairman until he was replaced at the agency last year.

Other ministries requiring Busuttil’s expertise since 2018 included the Environment, Energy and Enterprise Ministry (€22,883), the Economy, EU Funds and Lands Ministry (€13,600), the Social Policy and Children’s Rights Ministry (€11,415), the Justice Ministry (€10,715) and the Home Affairs Ministry (€4,566).