Mayor met minister 'as PN member, not mayor'

Sliema mayor Albert Bonello Du Puis attended an exclusive briefing with Roads Minister Jesmond Mugliett as a Nationalist Party member and not as a representative of Sliema residents, the mayor told The Times yesterday.

The meeting took place shortly before the Sliema Nationalist councillors voted in a motion in favour of the Qui-Si-Sana car park development last Wednesday.

The vote, as well as what they call the "secret" meeting, enraged Qui-Si-Sana residents and the Labour Party and Alternattiva Demokratika councillors who are opposing the development. Last June, the council had unanimously agreed to request a meeting with the Prime Minister to thrash out the matter.

The meeting did not materialise but last Wednesday, one of the PN councillors tabled a motion in favour of the development. The decision, the Nationalist councillors themselves acknowledged, followed the meeting they had with the Roads Minister.

Asked about his change of mind, Mr Bonello Du Puis said he never changed his mind in the sense that he was never against the development as long as the developer sticks to the brief.

"If the developer doesn't stick to the brief, I'll be the first to vote against it," he said.

During the meeting with Minister Mugliett, the councillors were shown traffic management plans for Sliema that convinced them even more of the importance of the Qui-Si-Sana car park, the mayor said.

On why this plan was not explained to the residents, he replied that such information was for the minister to make public in due course.

When it was pointed out to him that since he was representing the residents at that meeting he was bound to tell them what went on, Mr Bonello Du Puis made it clear he did not attend the meeting in his capacity as mayor.

"I went there as a party," he said. Asked whether this meant that he was there as a PN member rather than as a mayor, Mr Du Puis simply said "yes."

Meanwhile, the Qui-Si-Sana Residents Committee issued a statement expressing its anger at what they consider to be a U-turn by the Nationalist councillors.

Referring to last June's unanimous vote in favour of an appointment with the Prime Minister to discuss the withdrawal of the Qui-Si-Sana development brief, the committee said it was disgusted at a resolution moved by Nationalist councillor Michael Pace Rosso in favour of the car park.

The committee deplored actions by the Nationalist councillors who had held what they termed a "private and secret" meeting with Minister Mugliett.

"The exclusion of the other three councillors reflects an attitude of partisanship which negates the whole scope of a local council," the committee concluded.