The mayor of St Paul’s Bay Paul Bugeja filed a counter-protest yesterday against local councillor Keith Grech, who had claimed the 2pm council meetings were discriminatory because he worked at that time.

Mr Grech had claimed the council’s behaviour was abusive, yet in yesterday’s counter-protest, the mayor explained the time of the meetings had been established after consultations held with all the councillors.

In the counter-protest, Mr Bugeja and executive secretary Mario Ellul claimed that since Mr Grech worked with Maltacom, a government corporation, he could ask to be given special permission to attend the council meetings.

“In his protest, Mr Grech conveniently did not mention whether he had asked to be granted special permission to attend the meetings and therefore we presume he had ulterior motives for not making this request,” said the mayor.

The council meeting was held at the scheduled time and all except Mr Grech attended. The mayor and executive secretary denied the allegations made by Mr Grech and demanded that he stop this legal action and follow the council directives regarding meeting attendance.