Last week Dr Alfred Sant unveiled the Malta Labour Party’s electoral manifesto for local councils. Like other documents published during his leadership of the MLP, this manifesto is a carefully worded document intended to give the impression that everything would be alright once Labour is elected, but at the same time it leaves room for much
interpretation.
My concern is not that the MLP is trying to give a good impression in order to attract votes, but that by means of this manifesto it is trying to take the public for a ride.
Let me give some
examples.
The manifesto suggests that the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) should give funds to certain localities in order to be used to enhance tourism. Sounds like a good idea, however, nowhere in the manifesto does it say that the MTA should pass on these funds to the councils. The manifesto stops short of stating that this extra cash should be deposited and used up by the individual local councils.
This is strange since the manifesto concerns local councils and not central government. The truth is that Labour seems to believe more in central government control rather than local councils.
Jotting down ideas and impressions is easy but Dr Sant should be asked whether the funds to be derived from MTA are going to be managed by the local councils themselves.
He should elaborate which of the 68 local councils will benefit from these funds and can he specify from which portion of MTA’s finances will these funds be distributed to these “localities”?
Furthermore, the manifesto states that the Labour Party’s councillors will not impose any taxes. Well, Dr Sant should have a word with his Marsa mayor who proposed to introduce a tax on horses passing through the locality. How many points will he give himself for consistency?
Another interesting issue raised by the Labour manifesto is the use of wardens. Admittedly, they are not on the public’s good books. Undoubtedly, the introduction of local wardens, speed cameras and local tribunals are not vote catchers and Dr Sant is aware of this and wants to ride on their unpopularity.
In fact, the manifesto states that wardens will be used to educate the public, which might be a euphemism for not meting out fines. Dr Sant fails to point out one thing, that localities with a Labour majority make very good use of wardens and they make sure that they collect every cent. They are free to use local wardens how they wish.
The local councils, through their joint committees, are responsible for the policies that wardens use. If the local councils want them to be tough then by a mere snap of their fingers they will be tough but if they want to use a different policy they are free to do this.
Therefore, the impression that local wardens are a Nationalist controlled faculty is not correct. Where there is Labour in the driver’s seat, then they make the rules and not the Nationalists. Therefore, if any council would like its wardens to distribute leaflets instead of fines they are free to do it.
In fact Marsa and Birzebbuga, both Labour-led councils, do not even to this day have a local warden service. They could have introduced them to educate the public but they chose not to do so. Other Labour councils include large sums of money in the budgets in anticipation of their income from fines imposed by wardens.
Hamrun, for example, in their last budget anticipated an income of Lm100,000, Marsascala estimated an income of Lm33,000, while Fgura Lm 45,000.
Therefore, Labour cannot distance themselves from the responsibility of fines that are being given by wardens. They are participating fully in the system.
On the other hand, the Nationalist government in the past five years has introduced measures to make sure that the system is fair and just with all those involved, more importantly the public at large.
Therefore, to sum up, this electoral manifesto is more than meets the eye and my appeal to the people is not to allow themselves to be tricked.
Dr Malcolm Mifsud is Pieta mayor and president of the Nationalist Party’s College of Councillors.