From Mr J. Muscat

As I always read Mr P. Aquilina’s letters in your newspaper and this is the second time in the space of two or three weeks that I am also writing to express my disagreement with some of his analysis of local councils.

When he dealt with the percentages that Dr Sant dishes out on Labour local councils, I fully agree him. With respect to Dr Sant, I think that he should stop using this habit. To me, it is a banal practice to bestow awards on yourself (l-ghasfur b’rixu jifrah) and throw others who are opposed to you on the rubbish heap.

The people of the area who have no partisan feelings should rate the actions of the council and one can probably say that they will do this at an election. It is an unfortunate truth that people elect those of the same political colour, which is why somebody said some of these councils are reduced to the level of a political club.

I do not know this Mr Aquilina. Is he the mayor of some locality? Is he a mayor who has lost his job? He signs himself as a PN local council coordinator. Whatever, where I strongly disagree with him, is when he said that local councils have made a difference to our standard of living. What is that difference? By making uneven pavements, fixing surveillance cameras to extort money from people and at the same time prying into innocent people’s privacy with the excuse of protecting the environment?

I am not referring to speed cameras that are calibrated correctly to prevent accidents, but to those that are intended to book motorists who are driving at 45kph. In my opinion, that is extortion and there are many other traps for the motorists out of which the wardens make a feast. These and many others are not made by mistake, but because councils need to sustain themselves by collecting thousands upon thousands of liri.

It is true that there is a difference in people’s standard of living, but this is because of our present government and the ones before.

It is true that local councils are, unfortunately, here to stay, thanks to Dr Fenech Adami, or perhaps Europe. I believe that they are a requirement from Europe. I am not sure, but Europe must know that Malta is not a continent – only a tiny rock in the middle of the sea, so if Europe says that we must have local councils, surely not 65 of them in a land space of 17 x 9 miles. In my opinion, four local councils are enough: North, South, East and West.

Joseph Muscat

MOSTA