Malta’s 15-year local council experience has been at times colourful and at others painful. But, with hindsight, it is undeniable that Malta’s localities have benefited on a number of counts from the adventure.
There is, however, a great deal of room for improvement and as such the six-month local council reform process currently underway is undoubtedly a significant step in the right direction. And the reform’s potential, irrespective of how at the end of the day it is actually implemented by the government, is multifaceted, far-reaching and enormous.
The notion of bringing certain areas of the running of the country closer to the people, and vice versa, can indeed be greatly expanded upon – to the benefit of the citizen and in such a way as to provide for a smoother interface between the people, the central authorities and government entities.
Two main items that need addressing are the reviews of the length of local council’s terms of office, and the distribution of the global €25 million local council budget divided out between Malta and Gozo’s 68 localities.
The formula for working out different councils’ funding is a complicated one and is, roughly speaking, based on size and population of a locality – but it falls short of effectively accounting for the burden carried by certain localities that are visited by hundreds if not thousands of tourists, shoppers and workers on a daily basis.
Along the same lines, there is another valid argument that such localities, such as Floriana and Valletta for example, be allotted larger staff complements in order to deal with the mountain of paperwork related to non-residents, such as in the case of parking violations.
This is one of several state of affairs that clearly need to be addressed through the reform.
The request for lengthening local councils’ terms of office, meanwhile, has been one of the overriding issues raised by local councils during reform consultation meetings. Councillors have an obvious vested interest in seeing their terms of office extended from the current three-year stint but, on the other side of the coin, the argument that three years is too short a time in which to plan and enact for real change is a valid argument.
Moreover, a review of the local councils’ terms of office would naturally coincide with a review of the frequency of local council elections. The fact that the country and its political parties go through a ‘mini election’ every single year is a situation that needs amending. Much better the school of thought that local council elections be held every five years, all at once, in tandem with Malta’s European Parliamentary elections.
The suggestion from some quarters that local council elections be run in parallel to general elections would undoubtedly prove counterproductive. Firstly, local council elections serve as an invaluable midterm gauge for both the governing and opposition parties. Secondly, mixing the two issues would only serve to further politicise local councils – an area that is already unnecessarily over-politicised year after year.
The institution of local councils has also provided a solid stepping-stone for budding politicians looking to make headway into the larger arena of general government. Such politicians could also inject a much-needed constituency-based element into Parliament, with parliamentarians from a local council background tabling for discussion issues affecting their own constituencies to a much larger and significant degree than is done at present.
The suggestion, which will most likely be implemented come January, that local council staff begin working full days in summer, as opposed to the current half-day summer format, would also be a positive step accompanying the proposal that local councils become one-stop-shops for residents’ numerous needs, where local council staff would provide guidance and liase, on behalf of residents, with the appropriate authorities.
This leads to another major issue that will hopefully be tackled once the government sets about formulating the reform after the public consultation process draws to an end in November – that of creating a real working interface between local councils and the various public entities rendering services or carrying out work in their localities – such as the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, the Water Services Corporation and Enemalta.
Such an interface would also serve to better coordinate residential roadworks, which fall under the responsibility of local government, with pipe and cable laying activities creating havoc time and time again. A little forward planning works wonders in this respect.
It cannot be stressed enough that the scourge of rubbish plaguing Malta’s streets and open spaces is a matter of dire concern, and one that impinges, perhaps more than any other matter, directly on residents’ quality of life.
Today we carry a front-page story about a joint crackdown on littering and dumping contraventions being carried out from tomorrow by the police, Mepa and wardens. While the exercise is planned as a 10-day pilot project, it is hoped it will yield the desired results and that the experience will render the exercise a full-blown, permanent operation.