From Mr P. Aquilina

At national level, the MLP shirked their responsibilities three times; in 1950 they resigned and split the party in two – the Boffa Group and the MLP. In 1958 they resigned again and split into three groups. The MLP, the MWP (ta’ Pellegrini), and the group of Labourites that was against their party fighting with the Church in Malta. In 1998 they resigned again, after what was their shortest term in office; this time they split in two with Mintoff against Sant. Even now a split is evident between the Michael Falzon and Alfred Sant factions, the former reporting the case to the police for an alleged smear campaign against him. They are experts at breaking themselves into pieces.

At local level their record is the same if not worse, because they are unable to govern. A clear example is the Labour majority in Bormla. The Labour majorities are entrusted with thousands of liri at local level; I hate to think what they will do at national level where millions of liri are concerned.

The Maltese workers do not trust them and do not want to work for them. No less than six local councils – Mtarfa, Mosta, San Gwann, Zejtun, Qrendi and Pieta’ – are, or will soon be, without an executive secretary. Very soon more will follow. The Labour councils are not trusted by the workers especially those with different political opinion. The selection boards appointed by Labour-led majorities in a number of cases are comprised of one or two Labour councillors and an MLP member from the local club, as has happened in Mtarfa. At Mosta they are already promoting a person who is employed at the Education Department and a Labour supporter; at Pieta’ they have another Labourite in line who is retired but in the 1990s was employed on part-time basis by the Safi local council. I do not want to sound negative all the time because Labour are right on at least one thing, and that is when they say that they will be a government only for the Labourites. They are already adopting that policy at local level; in fact there are at least an ex-Labour mayor, and an ex MLP club president serving as executive Secretaries.

At Bormla sometime ago, the mayor paid for a personal case in court out of public funds and later had to forfeit his mayor’s allowance and pay back the money to the government.

At Mqabba, the Labour-led council ended the last financial year with a financial deficit in the working capital of no less than Lm32,000. The banal excuses given by the Mqabba council only show the inefficiency with which the Labour majority has run this quiet village in the last three years. This village is similar to the case when Labour was entrusted with power in 1996 after nearly 10 years. In Mqabba this is the first time Labour had a majority in the local council.

At Sta Lucia they had another financial flop when a deficit of over Lm7,000 in the income and expenditure account was registered, and left the council with only Lm4,000 in working capital, only because last year was their council’s election year. That is the Labour way of doing things. In this council all sorts of allowances are paid to the mayor and other Labour councillors, like cars for their personal use, mobile, Easyline, and ADSL fee allowances. Not to mention the fact that the councillors’ visit to China was paid for from public funds. They also had the arrogance to invite and take with them the Paola ex mayor and the Tarxien mayor and naturally, all expenses paid from public funds.

Finally, I would like to comment on Jimmy Magro’s (the Association of Local Councils executive secretary) reply to my contribution of 23 September. Mr Magro can rest assured that we will never ask him or anybody else to distribute EPP material at any association conference. The association should and must be left out of partisan politics. I also confirm that I have never met or spoken to Mr Magro but, I know, as many others do, that he was the MLP’s general secretary for a number of years and also because I do read the daily papers. The last time I read Mr Magro’s contribution on local councils was his article in the Maltese daily l-orizzont of 21 April, a few weeks before his appointment as executive secretary of the association. That article was both political and biased against the government’s policies regarding local councils and against local councils with PN majorities, which, according to Mr Magro’s article, receive preferential treatment from those local councils with a Labour majority. Before that Mr Magro was also involved in a court case concerning a local council’s press conference in Zebbug when he as a Labour Party official was fined by Magistrate Montebello on 18 February 2005.

Having said that, I am now very much relieved with Mr Magro’s statement confirming that he will faithfully and conscientiously perform his duties as the association’s executive secretary, without fear and/or favour. Only time will tell but I will take his word on it.

Pawlu Aquilina

Coordinator

PN Local Councils