From Mr P. Aquilina
In my old naval days, a particular recipe that was very popular with the sailors was a vegetable dish called Bubble and Squeak. It consisted of a mixture of leftover vegetables, mainly, turnips, red marrow, baby marrow, cabbage and potatoes, with some eggs mixed in.
I refer to the long reply by Dr Luciano Busuttil, Vice President – MLP Local Councillors Section and mayor of Hamrun to my last contribution. Firstly, I will not call his article stupid as he did mine, on the contrary, I respect his opinion but naturally I do not agree with it. Whatever the case, Dr Busuttil has the right to say his piece the same way I have the right to say mine.
In his letter last Sunday, Dr Busuttil sounded confused as he talked about a hundred different matters concerning local councils but did not get a single one correct. If there is a person in the Labour camp that can defend Labour councils surely it is not the Hamrun mayor. I state this for a number of reasons.
The Hamrun Labour council
In the last financial audit carried out by representatives of the Auditor General, the Hamrun local council was found to have committed a number of financial misdemeanours and consequently the auditor highlighted many points. Now keeping in mind that an audit is not an investigation, it is fair to state that to all intents and purposes the results just scratch the surface.
The Hamrun council was found to have given a payment cum donation to two of the Hamrun band clubs amounting to no less than e10,715.12 (Lm4,600). Both payments were made without an invoice and/or fiscal receipt.
The Assets Register of the Hamrun council is not kept according to the council’s financial regulations.
The council declared a surplus when in fact it had a deficit of e25,839.74 (Lm11,093) for the year.
The council declared an income of e43,913.35 (Lm18,852) twice in its accounts.
The council included another income of e9416.49 (Lm4,042.50) when in fact this sum should have been written off.
The Hamrun council taxed the people nearly one third of a million Malta liri (e768,683.90/Lm329,996) in just two years. These taxes were from warden tickets cum local enforcement system.
The ‘San Gejtanu’ beaches
The highlight of this glorified Labour council mess reached its peak when this same local council headed by Dr Busuttil declared an expense of e25,574 (Lm10,979) in the financial periods 2004/05 and 2005/06 for Cleaning & Maintenance of Beaches and Catchments areas.
When I brought this issue to light in another section of the press, the Hamrun council declared that it was a bookkeeping posting error and the expense was supposedly made for security service.
This particular expense went down from an astonishing e17,424 (Lm7,480) to a mere e2,800 (Lm1,202) and the cleaning of beaches was removed. How about that? A decrease of more than 600 per cent in just one year! The people have the right to know these things.
Therefore it was no wonder that with all these blunders the Hamrun Labour council was found to be one the most inefficient local councils in Malta by the Department of Local Councils, and this time not only on financial matters but on the general upkeep of the locality together with two other Labour local councils, those of Ta’ Xbiex and Cospicua.
I am sorry but Dr Busuttil cannot be objective in his comments about local councils. He is a lawyer by profession and, besides being the mayor of Hamrun, he is legal adviser to no less than six Labour councils, (naturally at a cost), after all Labour is only for Labourites. Essentially his job requires him to defend even wrongdoers and that is what he has tried to do on his Labour councils, but he failed miserably.
Facts are facts
The PN continues to be praised for its achievements by European Prime Ministers, Presidents, and all those who are responsible for the European Central Bank.
The last three years under Dr Lawrence Gonzi were exceptional. Malta has witnessed economical growth as never before and has managed to win the confidence of foreign investors. Malta has shown Europe that its people are capable of meeting any challenge, of course the PN has every faith in the people and why success was achieved. The PN has been in government and will be re-elected to continue providing wealth and security to this country.
The PN looks to the future because it is the People’s Party, contrary to the Labour Party that has no trust in the people. Even now, after these great successes in the Maltese economy, Labour continues to recommend devaluation of our currency.
We at the PN tell people the truth, unlike Labour who are a pessimistic lot and continuously preach doom and gloom. After so many electoral defeats they continue to perpetrate deceit have still not learnt that political deceit will ensnare the deceiver.
Labour will once more pay the price; they do not deserve better. They shy away from telling the people the truth even on very important matters like what they are doing at the moment.
That is why Labour lack credibility and people continue mistrusting them.
Pawlu Aquilina
PN Councillors Coordinator