From P. Aquilina

When the Labour Party speaks about change it never mentions the local councils, especially those local councils they took over from the PN and where they created havoc. In my contributions of the last weeks I mentioned a number of the fiascos of Labour-led councils in towns and villages where they have a majority. This alone proves that Labour is not even capable of governing a small town or village let alone the whole country.

The MLP has only been active in local elections since 1999. Deep down they are against local councils in principle, and their only interest is for their party to gain power at national level, (something which is very unlikely to happen at least in the coming years). If it accidentally does, then it will be the end of local councils. Labour believes in State control. They have said several times that the number of local councils will be reduced and if this happens places like Pembroke and Ta’ Xbiex will stop electing their own local representative because Labour Party policies are based on centralised controls.

Labour speaks of new beginnings but the majority of Labour candidates, or at least those with a chance of being elected, are an antiquated lot. They have antiquated ideas and whatever they choose to call themselves they can never say they are new and their political life is more on the ending side than the new beginning they talk about. Political leaders start thinking of leaving after a long period at the helm, especially when the period is an unsuccessful one, but for Dr Sant, after 16 years of failures, it is a new beginning. He has every right to his opinion but it does not mean he is correct.

Going back to local politics, this time round there are at least six or seven localities that are asking for a change – towns and villages like Pembroke, Ta’ Xbiex, Mellieha, Sta Venera, Mqabba, Qrendi and Zurrieq are all waiting to make a change; in realty most of these villages all have a PN majority as far as the residents’ party affiliation is concerned.

Pembroke local council

The Labour council here will reap the whirlwind because they have been unable to explain their inefficiencies of the last three years. The huge financial deficits (for the most part of their term), the abuse of power, the disrespect for the Local Councils Act and financial regulations, the way they have treated employees just because they were PN supporters and the partisan policies adopted.

Last week I spoke about four of the localities mentioned above. The locality of Pembroke is in fact the worst. This council distinguishes itself. All the administrative problems one can think of have happened during the last term of this local council – from police investigations and arrests to financial deficits, to the Labour mayor reporting his deputy (also Labour) to the department for not attending council meetings.

Labour talk a lot about corruption and as the general election draws nearer they will talk about it even more. I have to wait and hear whether they mention one single PN minister or MP who has been investigated by the police on government or administration matters, like Labour councils were on local councils’ award of tenders.

I have to wait and see whether Labour can mention a PN mayor who reported his own deputy to the department. This happened in Pembroke and was going to happen in Cospicua, but alas, the councillor concerned in Cospicua must have been a Sant follower and the mayor was overruled by MLP officials, whereas the deputy mayor at Pembroke is a declared Dr Michael Falzon follower and as such found no support from the MLP hierarchy

These are the MLP local committees that have disgraced our local governments. Let us help remove them.

Unfortunately, a good number of people tend to ignore local elections; this is very incorrect, as living standards depend a lot on the way our local councils operate. Therefore we must choose people of the highest integrity, people who are interested in their locality, people who are not blindfolded politically.

A case that I must mention is the town of Ta’ Xbiex. There are certain areas in Ta’ Xbiex where the vast majority are Nationalist residents. The Labour local council neglects these areas whereas other areas that have more Labour supporters residing there get priority in the council’s work.

Here the majority is three MLP and two PN councillors, but an unofficial MLP member has been added, as the Executive Secretary is a staunch Labour Party supporter.

I am not trying to be personal but Nationalist residents in all localities have as much right as Labour residents have, and must know every detail about their council.

Only we, the people, can change these situations with our vote, which I hope they will cast in an intelligent manner. Whatever the people decide will be accepted. After all, the will of the people is sovereign whether on national level or at local level. What the people decide is final and democratically accepted.

I for one will give my vote to PN councillors at St Paul’s Bay.

Pawlu Aquilina

PN Councillors Coordinator