Initially I admit to having been sceptical about the setting up of local councils. I considered they would serve to trigger new expenses without bringing about any real improvement in the administration of our towns and villages, while perhaps providing as well a new scope for corruption. Those suspicions were not completely unfounded.

However experience has shown that where local councils have been run correctly and with skill, yes, they did make a difference in the lives of citizens. Right from the start, at Zejtun for instance, that happened under the direction as mayor of my friend, the late lamented Joe Attard.

Recently, interest in local councils seems to have dwindled, both from the perspective of people at large where disappointment at the results being obtained by local action has been spreading, as well as from that of local councillors themselves who express disillusionment. One problem is that over the years, councils have come to be perceived as means for the decentralisation of government services but still under central direction, rather than as agents in charge of local administration with the ability to adapt their approaches according to local circumstances. There is need for a managerial audit that would propose a new reallocation of responsibilities between local councils and government agencies, plus guidelines as to how consultations between the two sides should be organised.

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FINANCIAL SCRUTINY

Prime Minister Robert Abela has rightly suggested that it makes sense to change how nominees to the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee should be selected. It is hardly comprehensible how as committee members, Ministers still in office are chosen. Perhaps the PM’s suggestion should have been adopted right from the point when the PAC was first launched, some decades ago. Since then however, it will have happened that an incoming government would find it hard to change the practice once its predecessor had implemented it  – thereby renouncing the political convenience enjoyed from it by its predecessor.

Still, to be honest, how can a minister still in office scrutinise well – that is, critically – the work of his/her comrades in cabinet or indeed, his/her own? In and of itself, the idea sounds contradictory.

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INDEPENDENT?

We hear quite a lot about the so-called independence of the institutions, constitutional and otherwise, which are established to regulate public decision-making in different sectors. Yet, there are many ways by which such institutions are actually less than independent. Factors which are brought to play, or which exist as a matter of fact and are taken for granted, serve to create a predictable and determining influence on decisions being taken.

Obviously, the leading factor occurs where the nomination of the chair and members of the institution is made by the government or some established authority. All governments take care to ensure that persons chosen are well aligned with their ideology and governing programme, or with the social interests the government relates to.  This does not happen only in Malta.

Then among other factors there are those which follow from the interests, the customs and the socio-economic culture that members of the institution carry with them. So, we find developers making decisions about environmental matters, traditional practitioners of the professional classes about innovative approaches in their line of activity, with similar practices in the field of public administration. The independence of the institutions is a concept in which we believe doubtingly.