AD reticent on rent campaign signatures

Alternattiva Demokratika chairman Harry Vassallo yesterday again refused to disclose how many signatures had been collected for his party's campaign to hold a referendum on rent reform.

The Sunday Times asked Dr Vassallo for the figure after he claimed that enough signatures to force a referendum would be collected by February if 100 people had to make door-to-door visits.

Dr Vassallo would neither say how many signatures had been collected to date. He said it was not in the interest of the referendum campaign to reveal the figures, adding that what was needed was a "focus of energy".

Addressing a public meeting yesterday, Dr Vassallo called for volunteers to knock on doors and collect signatures. A pilot project launched by AD showed that the door-to-door campaign's impact was 10 times stronger than that of flyers mailed to households.

The party is urging Government to amend the existing rent laws, under which properties are being rented out for rates well below market rates.

Dr Vassallo said that if one had to make a conservative estimate that each of the 17,000 properties affected by the rent law anomaly was worth Lm30,000, the collective value would be Lm510 million.

"We cannot tolerate this shameful injustice," he said.