Local council register

I refer to the letter by Natalino Attard (Payment For Local Council Register, April 17).

Mr Attard, director, Local Government, on May 7 sent to all local councils a spreadsheet explaining how each and every council gets its funds. This document, according to Mr Attard, had long been awaited; it contains a record of all the parks and gardens, soft areas, road signs and markings etc, which each of the 68 local councils has. One of the problems in this spreadsheet, however, is that it does not specify the particular assets which have been added up to calculate the total. Nevertheless, it is better than nothing.

This has proved the point I had made in my letter of April 10. The Local Councils Department had not yet sent to the Zurrieq council any register of this sort before that date. All it had sent were maps and periodical reports on the state of the locality at particular points in time. To my mind, these do not constitute a local council register. Local councils do not have the means and facilities to measure their own assets.

The department should keep in mind that local councils are to be provided with updated registers regularly. This is a fundamental requisite for transparency...on the government's side. Given that the allocation of funds is calculated upon the numbers contained in these registers, the matter's importance is easily evident.