Councils 'burdened'

The Labour Party's spokesman on local councils, Chris Cardona said the measure to reduce money allocated to local councils was taken by the government without any consultation.

Dr Cardona said the amount of money allocated to councils for the current three months was cut by five per cent, which went against the spirit of the Local Councils Act as well as the European Charter on Local Government, which insist that the councils should be consulted on matters that affected them directly.

This measure continued to put a burden on the councils which already were faced with the problem of limited finances, he said.