Gzira council vote declared void

The Local Councils Department has declared null and void a decision by the Gzira local council to remove Nationalist councillor Ian Micallef as its representative on the Sliema conjoint committee, which brings together seven councils from the area.

The department communicated its decision to the council by means of a letter on Thursday.

Dr Micallef was removed from his position during a meeting last Monday following a motion moved by Labour mayor Anthony Abela and deputy mayor Joseph Zammit.

Council executive official Fabian Borg said when contacted by The Times the council was reserving the right not to comment on the matter.

Mr Abela told The Times the council would be issuing a statement soon since the department's letter was based on information "fed" to it by Dr Micallef which, the mayor added, was not exact.

Asked whether the department had contacted the council for its side of the story, Mr Abela said the department had contacted the council's secretary.

A spokesman at the Local Councils Department chose not to comment.

In a letter to the department, Dr Micallef called on the director to investigate what he termed as the mayor's abuse of power when he wrote a letter informing the conjoint committee that he (the mayor) was now Gzira's council representative instead of Dr Micallef.

"The mayor is explicitly challenging your decision that the motion was null and void," Dr Micallef told the department director.

Dr Micallef said when contacted on the matter that he had informed the council he would not be attending the meeting last Monday because he had to be at a meeting of the Local Councils' Association.

Independent candidate Albert Rizzo was also absent for the meeting which was attended by the mayor, the deputy mayor, another Labour councillor and two Nationalist councillors.

Dr Micallef said he was told a verbal motion was moved at the meeting asking for his removal from the Sliema conjoint committee. The council secretary, Dr Micallef added, informed the councillors present she was doubtful whether such a motion could be presented. Two votes were then taken, one to decide whether such a motion could be moved and another on the motion proper. In the first vote three of the five councillors voted for the motion to be debated. When it was, the same three voted for it to be approved.

Asked whether any reason for the motion had been given, Dr Micallef said it had been claimed he was not keeping the council informed of what was taking place in the committee. This, he said, was absolutely not the case because the committee's minutes were being passed on to the council.

He said that as soon as he learned of the decision he wrote to the department that same evening (Monday). On Tuesday morning the department contacted the council to find out what had happened.

The department then wrote to the council telling it that after studying Dr Micallef's complaint, obtaining an explanation of the facts from the council's executive secretary and considering the council's agenda for the meeting, it decided that the motion was ultra vires, thus null and without effect.

Asked what he planned to do now that the department had decided, Dr Micallef said he would be attending the next meeting of the conjoint committee, probably to be held next week and expected his vote to be considered as valid.

The Nationalist Party's College of Councillors welcomed the department's decision and described the council's move as anti-democratic. A similar stance, it said, had already been taken in Hamrun when Nationalist councillor Paula Mifsud Bonnici was removed from a conjoint committee.

It said Dr Micallef had been removed from the conjoint committee a few days before this was to discuss and decide on the tender to select the local wardens contractor. The PN College of Councillors asked why the Labour Party was removing Nationalist councillors at such sensitive moments.