Local Councils Minister Owen Bonnici - a former local councillor himself - said that a lot of progress had been made within the sector. Speaking in parliament tonight, he said he could not understand why the opposition constantly berate the state of affairs within the sector, when the PN never dedicated the time, funds or attention to local councils.

He said he did not want to engage in drawing comparisons between his government and what the previous administration had achieved, but then decided to utilise the rest of his speaking time - about 20 minutes - to do exactly that.

Dr Bonnici said that the PN had accused the Government of cancelling a round of local council elections. "There is a very obvious difference between cancelling and postponing elections. We merely moved them to bring other elections in line. The PN, however, effectively cancelled local council elections in the localities of Marsa and Zejtun by pulling out of the race."

He also said that the PN had moved the dates of more than 20 local council elections. "We used to be in election mode every year, but thankfully, the previous government had seen sense and grouped them together to reduce the number of individual polls. That was good," said Dr Bonnici. "It does no one any good to be in election mode every year. So why, if PN governments did exactly the same thing, has there been so much criticism?" he asked.

He also compared the fact that this government had increased budget for local councils by €1 million. "The previous government cut their budget by 5%" he said. Dr Bonnici said that when this government took over, it found them in dire straits, most of the having been crippled by the PN government's decision that councils would have to take out their own bank loans to carry out road works, and then be paid in due course. "Most of those councils can barely afford to pay the interest on their loans. Of course, we are trying to address that," said Dr Bonnici.

He also made a quick mention of the introduction of voting rights for 16-year-olds in local council elections. He then went on to speak about the need to strengthen councils and regions at their base and to allow for more autonomous decision making by strong institutions at a local level.