As a Zurrieq resident, I am disappointed, to say the least, at the way the residents have been treated by our local council. The MLP councillors have decided yet again that Zurrieq residents are not prepared to identify glass, paper, plastic and metal! They unanimously agreed that we do not possess common sense and that everyone in this village is close to being illiterate. This is indeed total discrimination towards Zurrieq residents. This story has been dragging on for years now, with one excuse or another. We have also heard the excuse that the council was looking into other options used on the rest of the island.

The 10,000 residents of Zurrieq have been left without a decent bring-in site for years, with the being that we are not educated enough, while our neighbours have had this service for the last three years at least. We were provided with one experimental site, an experiment lasting too long, which went wrong. The reason why it went wrong is not because residents did not know how to use it, but because the service was not meeting the demand.

“Let’s save the environment!” stated the MLP leader few weeks ago during the local councils election fever. Indeed, it is not even a month since that statement, yet Zurrieq residents are still waiting to benefit from a service that will promote “saving the environment”. Our MLP-led council has publicly declared, not just via a press release but in front of a 20 people crowd in a local council meeting, that Zurrieq residents are not educated enough to distinguish paper from glass. “The council wants to discover new ways of how to separate waste and how to educate the residents, which are in real need of education,” was stated during this meeting by a particular MLP councillor. Another councillor stated that waste is the government’s problem and not that of the people or the council.

As an ex-councillor, I may add that back in 1998, Zurrieq local council was already considering its own plans for waste separation. Why has the position changed? Surely it is not because the education level of the residents has deteriorated! Could it then be because the party in government is different? It is unfair to blame any shortcomings or ill-taken decisions by the council on the residents! It is also unfair that residents are using the services provided by a neighbouring Council.

Unfortunately the “big brother” attitude of “we know best for the public” is not acceptable anymore. Zurrieq residents, who happen to have quite a high level of education, commonsense and pride, are offended, to say the least, by this attitude of their local council. We hope that this attitude of the local council changes, and that the decisions taken by the same council are inspired by the interests of the same residents, and not by ulterior motives.

Mauro Pace Parascandalo

Zurrieq