A clear message was sent by two mayors over the past couple of weeks, one who comes from the Nationalist Party, and the other from the Labour Party. Both effectively said that councils need more autonomy

St Paul's Bay mayor Alfred Grima does not plan to contest the next elections in 2024 for two main reasons, he had told The Malta Independent on Sunday - his family and the local council's lack of autonomy. The mayor indicated that "nowadays, the local council's autonomy does not exist"; it is written in our legislation that "local councils are autonomous", but this is no longer true at all, he said. He said that with power shifts over recent years, local councils now often need to seek approval from other entities, departments and authorities to get anything done.

Meanwhile, a week later, also in an interview with The Malta Independent on Sunday, Swieqi Mayor Noel Muscat also highlighted the lack of autonomy councils have. He said that the competences of local councils have decreased over recent years. He said that local councils should regain the powers they have lost and more. Furthermore, he is frustrated that "rather than improving local councils and the service given, we have weakened them" and that despite their lost powers, residents still turn to the local councils and blame them for anything that is going wrong. Muscat even accused the government of having reduced the local councils' autonomy to intentionally decrease their popularity in order to lead to further centralisation of power.

When two mayors of two different large localities highlight that there is an issue, especially when they both come from two different political parties, the government needs to sit down and listen. Their concerns need to be addressed.

Local councils know their localities best, know the problems that their residents face.

Now one must point out that the centralization of certain sectors, such as roadworks, wasn't a bad thing, especially given the financial costs for councils themselves in the past. But local councils should have enough powers to ensure that they can help their locality.

Councils should, for instance, have a stronger say when it comes to planning applications in their localities, especially when it comes to major projects. What about having a stronger say in the type of development in their locality? What if they don't agree with the zoning of a particular area?

What about the ability to introduce more local services? The Swieqi Mayor, for instance, mentioned a healthcare service the Swieqi council had introduced that was halted due to the Covid-19 pandemic was never restarted despite the council's wishes. The mayor said that all that is needed is a doctor who can take blood pressure, perform quick checks and hand out prescriptions, if needed, so residents do not need to leave their locality for simple check-ups. But his request to bring back this clinical service was rejected. Does this make sense?

Councils should also have better access to enforcement in their localities. Take the garbage dumping situation in Swieqi, St Julian's and Sliema for instance, the local councils need to depend completely on outside agencies and authorities. Muscat described how the police told him that they could not afford to send a policeman to stay at fixed points for several hours around hotspots where people dump garbage on the wrong days. How else are these people to be caught? It was also mentioned that LESA had informed him that they did not have the people to perform this task either, stating that they could only offer for an official to be on standby at one of these fixed points for an hour every 3 weeks. The government should explain how, exactly, this issue is going to be tackled if these agencies don't have the manpower. If councils don't have their own way to enforce such issues, then at least the enforcement authorities need to take more serious action when councils require it.

We need to ensure that local councils have the powers and easy access to enforcement they need to help their residents.

We must keep in mind that too much centralization of power leads to more clientelism at the highest levels and, lets be honest, this country has faced such a problem over the years.

The local council elections are in 2024. The debate should focus on both parties' concrete plans for these councils, their autonomy and powers. With added powers and autonomy, oversight of councils would also need to be improved, as would the need for councils to be on the ball, which should also form part of the debate.