Blockbuster Budget: Did The Film Commissioner Spend More On Travel And Accommodation Than Malta’s Ministers?
Much has been said about the lavish spending of the islands’ film industry in the past couple of days. But overlooking massive cash rebates to major productions and murky award ceremony budgets sits Malta’s Film Commissioner… who may have not only spent way more on travel than his predecessor, but also some of the country’s ministers.
Johann Grech’s first full year as Malta Film Commissioner was back in 2018, and it didn’t take long for his extravagant travel spending sprees to be highlighted.
By his second year, a report by The Shift alleged that Grech had spent more than €500,000 of taxpayer money on flights and accommodation in his first 24 months at the commission’s helm. His first year alone tallied up to €326,000.
In that initial report by The Shift, it was alleged that Grech spent more than €39,000 on flights tickets to travel on a 20-day back-to-back mission to Los Angeles, Cannes and London. Almost another €5,000 in costs for hotel accommodation during “a 13-night mission” were also noted, not to mention more than €4,000 in “subsistence allowances”.
For Grech and his private secretary to fly to a conference in Austin, Texas and then attend a festival in Hong Kong, a total of €47,000 were allegedly spent from taxpayer money on plane tickets.
For context, his predecessor Engelbert Grech had spent €30,000 on travel in his full first year as Film Commissioner in 2014.
But it’s not just industry standards that Grech seems to have overspent. In fact, if correct, travel expenses this big could very well challenge those by some of the country’s prominent ministers.
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A quick look at official documents presented during the 2022 Budget reveals a breakdown of travel expenses by Malta’s ministers… with some of them being overshadowed by the Film Commissioner.
Finance Minister Clyde Caruana, for example, was shown to have spent €244,654 on travelling in 2021, with an approved estimate of €255,000 for 2022 and another estimate of €255,000 for 2023.
That means Film Commissioner Johann Grech might have not only spent more on travel in his first two years than the Finance Minister did these last two years… but actually ended up spending around two and a half year’s worth of the minister’s allocated budget.
The situation is echoed when it comes to Economy, EU Funds and Lands Minister Silvio Schembri, who only spent €56,094 on travel in 2021 and had an approved 2022 estimate of €200,000. In other words, those two years came up to less than half of Grech’s 2018 and 2019.
Schembri’s travel expenses estimate more than tripled and shot up to €653,000 for this year… but even then, should a minister’s budget be anywhere near a Film Commissioner’s?
As expected, spending way more than all of this are Malta’s Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister, whose schedules require very frequent and very important trips.
Here, of course, the travel expenses overshadow any other ministers’, with Robert Abela and Ian Borg each spending over €1 million per year. In 2022 alone, the prime minister’s approved estimate was €2,500.
But even then, the question persists: with allegations of lavish trips to Los Angeles and exotic stays in Hong Kong, Beijing, New Zealand and New York, does the Film Commissioner’s travel budget justify the return Malta’s film industry is seeing?
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