Updated 0915
COLA to reach €10
The cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), awarded annually to compensate for inflation is likely to approach €10 per week by the post-summer budget, up from €1.75. The Times of Malta says that according to the workings of a fixed formula that takes into consideration the minimum wage and the past year’s inflation, the adjustment now stands at around €9.10 and is likely to reach around €9.90 by the time it is announced in the October budget.
Morning Briefing
Maltatoday reports that a plan by Finance Minister Clyde Caruana to have some 600 employees at the loss-making Air Malta transferred into the public service and public sector, was not possible to effect without breaching EU rules on state aid. Government sources said the writing had long been on the wall, well before Caruana’s declarations on the national airline’s uncertain future back in January.
Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà has insisted in an interview that he gets ‘absolutely no’ interference from the Office of the Prime Minister. He told the Times of Malta that based on current evidence, every person involved in the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia has been caught and arraigned.
Newsbook reveals that the Malta Gaming Authority spent thousands of euros on a four-day trip for its former CEO and two other officials to South Africa in 2017. Former CEO Joseph Cuschieri spent thousands of euros on a four-day trip in South Africa when he headed the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) in 2017.
The composition of the Parliamentary Standards Committee puts ‘unfair pressure’ on the Speaker of the House to act as a referee, Standards Commissioner George Hyzler told the Malta Independent. In an interview yersterday, Hyzler, who will be stepping down from his post to join the European Court of Auditors later this year, said that discussions on reports referred to the Standards Committee are often treated as partisan political issues by the MPs.
TVM reports that The Court has released the remains of Christian Degabriele for burial. Christian Degabriele, who was a soldier and a father, will be given a final farewell at St Catherine’s parish church on Wednesday at 10.00 a.m. Degabriele lost his life on Friday when he was diving in the vicinity of St Paul’s Bay and failed to surface. The youth, a soldier with the maritime section of the Armed Forces, was free-diving in the area between the Buġibba shore and St Paul’s Islands.
