Sant asks whether original objectives have been reached

Labour MP Alfred Sant asked in Parliament yesterday whether the original objectives of the setting up of local councils - subsidiarity, increased citizen participation and efficiency in managing public funds - had been achieved.

He said that although local councils had spurred progress in various localities, there was still a long way to go to face challenges brought about by development.

Dr Sant said that the government was interchanging subsidiarity with decentralisation and regionality, with local councils often rendered as an extension of central authority. Local councils were being used by the government to increase its revenue. The amendments regarding the appointment of executive secretaries showed that the government did not really embrace the principle of subsidiarity.

He praised the fact that councils would now have social functions as part of their responsibilities, adding that for years the PL had insisted on such social and cultural dimensions. But he criticised the government for proposing control on local councils so that they would conform to government policy. Dr Sant said that the Bill failed to address the role and functions of civil society. This showed that there were serious problems in the relationship between civil society and local government. Issues which were supposed to be brought forward by civil society had become partisan issues.

The PN had been scandalised at the statutory union between the then Labour government and the General Workers' Union. When these officials chose to contest elections they refrained from their union work during the campaign. But today no one was scandalised and did not condemn civil society senior officials such as Vincent Farrugia, who had contested the European Parliament elections on the Nationalist platform while retaining his seat as director-general of the GRTU.

The same could be said of Stefano Mallia, who was Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce and Enterprise and at the same time had been heavily involved in the organisation of the PN electoral campaign.

Dr Sant asked whether people, particularly civil service employees, were interested in the running of their localities. Were they encouraged to contest the local elections?

Under GonziPN, the civil service was polarised and politicised, with the Prime Minister turning a blind eye. Government departments favoured councils with a PN majority and hindered councils which had a PL majority. Political clientelism at a local level was not contributing to good leadership.

The method by which local councils were to have elections during the transitory period was very suspicious. The councils were grouped to give advantage to GonziPN when general or European Parliament elections were to be held. This was a shame, declared Dr Sant.

When he referred to better efficiency in managing local councils, he said that no analysis had been made on the financial, social and economic benefits which local councils had brought at the macro and micro levels. One had to see how local councils contributed to better management of public finances. This was urgent. He was convinced that many councils had no reason to be afraid of this analysis.

Dr Sant said the local warden system was being abused, with speed cameras introduced in strange places to spy on people, thus becoming a source of revenue for the government. He described as "absurd" the maximum speed limit of 60 kph in bypasses, removing any incentive for drivers to use these roads instead of town centres. The system was also giving rise to a means of clientelism when elections were approaching. Concluding, Dr Sant said the Bill was superficial and aimed at putting local councils under government control, thus losing a golden opportunity for the advancement of local government.

Michael Falzon (PL) said the people had always shown a certain enthusiasm for local council elections, which had started with a turn-out of around 64 per cent and, since Labour's decision to contest the elections, now regularly stood at over 70 per cent. The element of local councils was entrenched in the Constitution.

Instead of going for a half-baked reform of local councils, Dr Falzon said, the House should go the whole way, especially in the electoral aspect. The way the councils had been split was clearly intended to give the government of the day a good annual feel of the prevailing trend of public thought. The annual outcome of local council elections was invariably interpreted differently by each party.

One should consider whether the advent of local councils had given rise to a new kind of clientelism.

The time of sounding out a third of the population every year was thankfully over, and the government itself was proposing four-year terms for each council, such that half of the country would go to the polls in alternate years. Most of the proposals in the current Bill were the fruit of tripartite talks in the summer of 2007.

Election fatigue could be detected on several occasions, adversely affecting turn-out so long as other national polls were not on at the same time, as had happened this month.

Dr Falzon called for a local council's term of office to be extended from four to five years, so that those elections could start being held statutorily at the same time as those for the European Parliament. This had been successfully accomplished in other countries. It would also enhance the element of governability.

It would probably be considered a courageous step, even though a five-year term had not commanded the most common ground during the talks. Coming from the opposition, it might also be seen as a bold step, but this was a case of looking at the national rather than partisan interests.

There were other ways of keeping a party's rank and file on their toes and gauging people's feelings.

Another important consideration was financial, both for the contending parties and for the national coffers. It was time for a quantum leap, even organisationally and even if partisan interests could cloud ways of thinking.

Concluding, Dr Falzon said that as things stood now, there would be local council elections in 2012, general elections in 2013, European Parliament elections in 2014 and local council elections again in 2015.