In an interview carried out last week in The Malta Independent, the new president of the Local Councils Association, Michael Cohen, said he is of the opinion that mayors should be employed full-time with their council.

“It will be better for the council and for the locality if the mayors had to be employed as full-timers. Mayors would make their presence felt in the council, seeing to council work. This would lead to better results,” he said.

This is not the first time that this subject has been brought up. In fact, Mr Cohen went on to comment that some years back the association began discussing this possibility but the discussions were never concluded.

Mayors are, so far, the only members of the council to be remunerated for their work. The other councillors are not paid for their time doing work for the council.

Mr Cohen does have a point, although if this concept were to be introduced it would obviously have its repercussions. This is because, while it is “easy” for government employees to be seconded with local councils, and retain their job once their term of office expires and/or if they lose the post, it is much more difficult for employees with private companies to leave their job to take up what would be their full-time job in the council.

Private companies would be reluctant to have an employee “leaving” for three years and then take him back, presumably in his or her previous post.

Another matter that was brought up in the interview was the council’s term of office. This is another subject that has been discussed over the past few years, but no agreement was reached between the political parties on the matter.

It had been suggested that a council’s term, at present of three years, should be extended to four or five years. This would either mean that local councils would be grouped in smaller batches for elections to continue to be held every year or, better still, in larger groups which would mean that elections would not need to be held every year.

If it is decided that a council’s term should last five years, then the best idea would be to hold local council elections right in the middle of a government legislature. This would hit two birds with one stone – it would mean that Malta will not go in election mode every year and, secondly, local council elections would gain in importance as, if one common election is held, political parties would be able to gauge their position better midway through the five years of a legislature.

The parties should get together and discuss the issue again because, after all, it would also mean less expenses for them and also for the government, apart from other benefits.

Added to this, with a longer term in office local councils would have more continuity and the possibility of planning and carrying out their work better.

Mr Cohen admitted that “many people, not to say the majority” do not want political parties to field their candidates. This is a hot topic. Local councils started in 1993 with the Labour Party opting out, in the sense that the MLP did not field candidates, although many so-called independent candidates had Labour connections. In fact, many of them contested for the MLP when the party later decided to join the fray.

What should really be asked in this respect is whether the presence of political parties in local elections is really beneficial to the councils. In many cases, the continuous bickering that goes on between the different political factions does not help the councils’ functions in the best way possible.

There are then many people who would gladly give their contribution at council level, and who would possibly do a better job than the incumbent councillors, but who do not want to participate because they do not like being linked to a political party.