Gonzi sees time for review of local government

Joe the following is my e-mail; malti_1@yahoo.co.uk

Joe, I wish I had your e-mail address.
You keep referring to 'Regional Governments' - maybe you are confusing the term. I am referring to Regional Councils - not any higher entities.
Not many years ago in Southwestern Ontario there were a lot (mainly rural) of councils which were amalgamated into a Regional Council. Just imagine the present councils in Malta say in District 1 - Valletta, Hamrun, Floriana, parts of Sta. Venera and part of Pieta. All these areas have respective councils when as you know, these towns are separated by a street. In fact Annunciation Street - one side is Hamrun and the other side is St.Venera!! So, what is wrong by having one larger council headed by one Mayor in charge of the whole district?
As an example -Refuse collection, at present five councils are contracting with with more than one contractor and I am willing to bet a coffee that if this 'super' council had to deal with one contractor, the cost would be lower, it will be more worthwhile for the contractor, in turn he will probably give a much better service because he has more at stake than providing for a much smaller area at present. There is absolutely no reason why it will not work. You may have got the impression that I was talking about another level of council. I was not. What I was leading to is REPLACING the bits and pieces all over the place with a more efficient, larger, better staffed council. I understand that the PM has taken these councils under his wings. Would it not be better and simpler if he had to deal with 13 councils rather than 54?
With reference to New York, are you suggesting that the mayor there has fewer people-area-bureaucracy-services etc to deal with than the whole of Malta and Gozo?
While you stated that this system will not work in Malta, you never explained why.
While this item will soon disappear from this site, I hope that somehow we will maintain contact since I do hope to visit during the Summer.

Joe, I hope you do not mind calling you by your first name. I agree with you in principle. I, like you, have lived in Canada for 30yrs having just returned back in the last four years. I only lived a few miles down the 401 from you--Toronto.

Joe you cannot compare Malta with that of NY. If I am not mistaken NY still have the same political structure to that of Metropolitan Toronto prior to the City of Toronto Amalgamation. Regional Governments in Ontario have juristication over certain things, like roadways that cross a number of municipalties withen the same Regional Juristication. In Conclustion, regional governments, at least in Ontario, did not replace the local government. Both level of governments have thier responsabilities in certain areas as prescribed by the creator in Ontario's case by the Ontario Legislation. One did not replaced the other.

Mr. Vella, for the sake of brevity, I did not go into detail regarding the make-up of Regional Councils, so let me expand a bit. At present a district may be made up of say five towns, each town elects five councillors of which one becomes mayor (these are examples only), which means we have five mayors and a total of twenty five councillors in total. If a Regional Council is formed, right away one saves four mayors but there will still be representation from all five towns.
Believe me, if New York has one mayor and London England has one mayor why would Malta and Gozo need 54?
If there is representation from all the towns within the district, your concern regarding ganging up does not hold water, since all representatives belong to the same council. Besides, I get somewhat annoyed when I hear that 'this will not work in Malta'. Make it work. We have to grow up and we cannot stubbornly cling on an archaic system. Status quo is no longer acceptable - we have to move forward. We have to compete in every aspect and we cannot progress unless we become more efficient.

We have to abandon the island mentality. Yes we are still surrounded by an ocean but we are now an integral part of Europe and please let us shake off our sense of inferiority, roll up our sleeves and get going. Wasting time to make sure we are politically correct to the minutest detail sometimes grinds progress to a halt. We need a steamroller not a pair of skates!

Dear Prime Minister yes I agree that it is about time to review the progress made in local government.
With full cooperation from the Opposition, I think it is about time that a very important reform regarding the local council should be that a date is set, let us say, in the third year of the coming legislature when the election for all the local councils in Malta and Gozo takes place on the same day.

Taking into consideration that every five years as members of the European Union, we now have the elections for the six members which will be representing Malta in the European Parliament, this would mean that :
* in 2009 we will have the Europarliament elections,
* in 2011 we would have the local council elections all on the same day, and
*in 2013 the General Elections.
Going back to the local councils,
this leads to the idea that the local councils term should be extended to five years, in line with the legislature of the National and European parliament. For this to come into effect in some cases it would mean that the term of certain local councils is shortened, while in other cases it is extended. But this would be only an exemption to the rule, till the local council elections mechanism will be geared to the suggested effect.
So if the Government and Opposition still wants to keep the political parties hold on these councils, at least they will spare us the trouble of an ever-ending political run up for the general elections, reflected annually through such local governments.

Regarding the local government, in my opinion, ideally, the best decision will be to leave the local council well of the border of any political interference and all those interested to serve their locality should do so independently, free from any party ties.
But, yes, I must admit that perhaps this is only wishful thinking, though it is not that far-fetched considering there is Department for Local Councils which is sort of responsible for surveying the way, these councils operates and precisely the Prime Minister holding the local councils within his portofolio.

The Dept. for Local Councils should be more vigilant as regards how money is being spent by certain local councils. I have reported cases to the Dept. but were not headed. Workers assigned with certain Councils are not giving their days' work, and in other cases Councils are not respecting their duties by not accepting to have wardens or accepting fines to be paid at their offices at the mercy of residents who have to travel to neighbouring Councils to pay the fine. The Prim Minister should see to it that what is devolved to the Councils should be uniformly adhered to. The Dept. for Local Councils should monitor the Minutes of Local Councils and vet what is being decided and how the taxpayers money is being spent. I myself have written to the Director but my pleas where not heeded to as one would have expected and finally i gave up.

Joe, I am almost in agreement in all that you say, but on this one I am afraid I have to disagree with you. It is true that 50 plus local councils sound to many, but the system of Regional Government in Malta, I am afraid wouldn't work. If it was to work every city, village and town withen that electoral district have to have guarantee representation. Even if that, is achievable, what if councillors from two, cities, towns or villages form an alliance at the detrement of the other. To give an example, let's take the district that I reside in which is the 12th District composed of Mellieha, St. Paul's Bay and Naxxar and say that two of the villages councillors gang up together to get work done in their respective town at the detrement of the other. Joe with all due respect you see where I am going. I am afraid it wouldn't work in Malta. I, like you, lived in Canada, and there as you know, there are 4 level of governments. I would love to have the opportunity to sit down with you for a coffee next time you are in Malta and exchange some Ideas.

When the local councils were first established, they were something new never experienced before in Malta. The legislation had areas which can be improved upon. First, and I am sure I will get an earful, the idea of having candidates contest under a political banner was a big mistake. The initial feeling was that more political mileage could be gleaned from such a system. This proved to be a white elephant. In fact in larger countries where there exists such a tier of governments, the municipal councils run independently. There is less in-fighting, they are usually more efficient and individual councils work together better collectively in lobbying the central government for funding etc. Secondly, 50+ councils for Malta are far too many. This creates duplicity in service costs, overlapping jurisdictions, waste and favouritism. There are 13 electoral districts and there should be no more than 13 Regional Councils. This will result in greater efficiency and less costs. Since there will not be any political labels, it does not matter whether the mayor is red blue or green. Funding for each region will be determined by what projects need to be done, properly costed out, tendered, audited and if found in excess of budget, the difference is taken out of discretionary funds from parking fines etc. Quarterly reports should be forwarded to the Minister responsible without fail. There are countless of qualified individuals who do not bother to run because of the present highly adversarial system.