The last official council meeting was held in July and no meetings have been held since then. The mayor and deputy mayor are at loggerheads with each other, and the mayor recently filed an official letter against the executive secretary and a court case is pending. The executive secretary on his part made three affidavits claiming that he has to put up with a lot of interference in his job. These two very important council officials do not even speak to each other.

Some months ago the mayor’s daughter-in-law was employed with the Mosta council as a secretary, but the lady resigned her position some weeks ago and is no longer employed there. Her resignation could be one of the reasons for the bad relations between the mayor and the executive secretary.

A council meeting with a full agenda, which included the building of a swimming pool and a disco at Gnien l-Gharusa tal-Mosta, was called for Thursday 25 September. This meeting was called off because there was no quorum, as only the mayor and two Labour councillors turned up for the meeting.

This situation led to MLP leader Dr Joseph Muscat summoning the Mosta Labour councillors to party headquarters on Thursday 2 October and instructing them in no uncertain manner to cooperate with each other and to desist from creating more problems. During this meeting, voices were raised and very hot arguments made.

A council meeting was called for the day after on Friday 3 October. The meeting started but was adjourned after only about 45 minutes again due to lack of quorum when the deputy mayor walked out claiming she had a previous engagement and could not stay. No decisions were taken and only the minutes of the two previous meetings were read.

Since March 2007, the Mosta council, besides having problems between Labour councillors (some of them in a threatening manner), has had to cope with other problems involving both Mosta band clubs and the Mosta Football Club, with the mayor abstaining on a vote for the council’s ‘no objection’ to a football ground project. The council also failed to organise any special cultural events in this current special year for Mosta, it being the 400th anniversary of the Mosta Parish Church.

All this is causing a lot of unnecessary problems for Mosta residents who, prior to the last 18 months, had enjoyed a quiet 14 years with a local council that had a PN majority.

The administration of the Mosta local council was changed from a PN to a Labour majority after the famous handyman matter. Since then, it has resulted that not only has this handyman kept his job but the Labour council boasts that he is the council’s best asset, but now, the Mosta Labour council has employed a second handyman. Lies have no boundaries.

The situation in Mosta is affecting the local administration as no payments to contractors have been approved and no decision to carry out structural work of any kind is being taken by this council.

It is a case that wherever Labour governs they destroy. In a democratic country like ours people have the right to choose their leaders and the people express this right with their votes. In the case of Mosta they made a mistake and are reaping the whirlwind. Unfortunately, Labour cannot be trusted; all the misdemeanours that occur at national level repeat themselves all over again at local level, always at the cost of the residents’ standard of living. The Mosta people have a right to know what is happening in their local council.

I appeal to the Department of Local Government to take whatever action is necessary to stop Labour’s mismanagement of the Mosta locality.

Paul Aquilina

PN Local Councils Coordinator