Updated: Siggiewi council approves motion on PL club

(Updated 8.30 p.m.)

Siggiewi council has approved a motion calling on the government not to renew the lease of a property currently being used as a Labour Party club and instead to transfer the property to the council. The lease expires in just under a year.

The motion was moved by deputy mayor Karol Aquilina and approved thanks to the four votes of the PN councillors. The three PL councillors voted against.

Earlier, Dr Aquilina in a statement had urged the Labour Party and its councillors at Siggiewi to act in the interest of the locality.

Dr Aquilina said the council wished to use the property - in St Nicholas Square - as a day care centre for the elderly and also for its own offices. He said that no better property had been found.

Dr Aquilina said that the way how this property was transferred for use by the PL in the 1980s showed that the then Labour government made no distinction between party and country. The method used was 'scandalous,' he said, and the people of Siggiewi had been denied the use of a public property from which several services could have been provided.

The property, formerly known as Villa Siggiewi, used to belong to Mabel Strickland. It was bought by the government in the 1960s and used as a primary school for several years. In 1969 it became a civic centre used by a number of organisations.

In 1981 the Labour Party submitted an offer to lease part of the property. The property was leased to the party on December 11, 1981 - on the eve of the general election, for Lm200 a year. In 1983 other parts of the building became vacant and the governemnt issued a call for those wishing to lease it. This was then also transferred to the Labour Party.

In 1987, a few months before the election, the government accepted a party request and extended the lease for 24 years that expire in June next year, Dr Aquilina said.