ONE Radio presenter Manuel Micallef on €60,000 Wasteserv package

Manuel Micallef, a regular host on Labour’s media and a former newsroom head at the political station, now also employed in a top managerial position at Wasteserv, does not have a fixed place of work or an office, according to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request filed by The Shift.

Recruited at the agency without a call in 2014, Micallef currently receives a €60,000 financial package but is not required to be physically present at Wasteserv’s head office and can work “at any of the various sites in Malta and in Gozo, where the company is carrying on business, operations or activities”.

In addition, the contract, renewable every three years, is sparse on details regarding his job description.

Under the title of ‘Chief Officer in the Office of the CEO’, Micallef’s tasks are “set by the company from time to time”, and his job’s terms of reference are unspecified.

Also, in the latest version of his job renewal contract, last year, Micallef’s designation changed to ‘Manager Corporate Services’, while all the other provisions in his contract, including his place of work and financial package, remained unchanged.

Despite missing details on job role and place of work, the contract, signed by Chairman Frank Bezzina and CEO Richard Bilocca, is very specific regarding Micallef’s remuneration.

Apart from his basic €40,000 salary, Micallef gets a performance bonus, a fully expensed car and fuel, a communication allowance, an expense allowance, and an undefined ‘special allowance’ of an additional €5,000 a year, totalling some €60,000 a year.

Aside from his work in the media and senior management at Wasteserv, Micallef is also known for his work at the General Workers’ Union when he was its deputy general secretary. But after a fallout with the then-boss of the union, Tony Zarb, he took a job with the then-in-government Nationalist Party broadcaster, NET TV.

When disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat took over the Labour Party, he shifted back. When Muscat won the general elections in 2013, he was given his job at Wasteserv shortly after.

Micallef is married to Norma Saliba, the former PBS Head of News who was forced to resign in 2023. She was also given a new government job with a financial package of over €73,000 a year.