The new PN-led St Paul’s Bay Local Council has inherited a deficit of more than €425,000, Mayor Graziella Galea announced on Facebook. Ms Galea wrote that this unexpected deficit will limit the council’s functions but insisted that it will make the most of the available funds.

When contacted by The Malta Independent yesterday, Ms Galea explained that the deficit was a result of “overspending” by the previous administration. Asked to state what the money was spent on, the Mayor said she was unsure how to reply, seeing that the PL-led council had hardly carried out any projects. Ms Galea, the daughter of Deputy Speaker Censu Galea, was re-elected Mayor of St Paul’s Bay last April. She had already served as mayor from 2008 to 2012, when the PL won the locality. Mario Salerno served as Mayor first and was later succeeded by Ray Tabone.  

“They always put the blame on our Public Private Partnerships on roadworks but when the PL took over we had left them enough funds to pay for the whole eight-year programme. I am unsure as to what projects they spent the money on as hardly anything was done, apart from some roadworks.” She also claimed that there are unpaid invoices for works carried out in 2014, including waste collection.

Ms Galea said it seemed most of the overspending was done during the first four months of this year, prior to the local council elections. “A lot of it involved shoddy work, such as road patching that has already come undone. Local Councils are supposed to end the year with 10% of their annual budget in their coffers. The accounts we have done show that, up till April, the council had a deficit of 33%.”

The Mayor said the council would now have to revise its budget and only carry out essential works seeing that there is no money for anything else. “The council is bound by certain contractual agreements which have to be respected. We also found that some of the council workers were being paid exaggerated sums in overtime during the past four years. Now we have had to reduce all overtime hours to afford paying the workers. The problem is that the need for their services will increase greatly during the summer months.”

Ms Galea said the council would be seeking to obtain funds from alternate sources, such as government schemes, in order to be able to organize activities such as the summer carnival.