The news that Sliema councillors have been arrested on allegations of fraud, bribery and misappropriation of council funds has sent another shockwave through members of the public who have been inundated with similar stories about local councils since last year. It is now clear that when the concept of local government was first created, not enough mechanisms were put in place to avoid these pitfalls.
Granted, some of the lesser charges of using council laptops for personal use sound almost frivolous; if councillors are taking laptops home to continue working on council work, then surely this should not constitute ‘misappropriation’. Laptops, after all, are designed for this purpose. A distinction definitely needs to be made between outright illegal behaviour and actions which can barely be considered an infringement. The case of the Gozo mayor who resigned over this very same issue last year (because he allowed his daughter to use his council laptop) was another instance when a minor incident was blown completely out of proportion.
More serious are the accusations of irregularities in how contracts are being awarded. It is here that the electorate is understandably showing its concern and questioning what exactly is going on within the offices of some local councils. The substantial amounts of money involved require a complete rethinking in the way councils are being run because something is obviously amiss. When we learn that funds are being mismanaged, and that there are ‘shortcomings’ and ‘irregularities’, it can only lead people to lose faith in the entire system and inevitably, they will no longer be interested in participating in local council elections. It is not unrealistic for voters to start perceiving the entire system as being ‘corrupt’.
Some have suggested that this situation has come about because too many councillors use their local council seat as a stepping stone for entering politics on a national level. The combination of raw political ambition and access to public funds is too tempting for those who wish to use their position for personal gain, some will argue.
In fact, there have been other options put forward to ensure that local councils start to function as they were meant to, one of which is to remove party politics from the local council system altogether, so that anyone interested in serving his home town will have to run on an individual basis on his/her own merit.
Alternatively, another suggestion is to simply appoint a small team of civil servants to run each town or village office, rather than have elections. These ideas might run contrary to the way local councils were initially conceived, but given the tarnished image of several councils, they are well worth considering.