The mayor of St Paul’s Bay has been criticised for what a corres-pondent (August 13) claims to be her “utter silence and inertia” as a result of her not replying to his email to her of July 17.

I agree that all correspondence should, initially, be acknowledged and then replied to in a timely manner especially if such correspondence is sent to a public official who is paid from taxpayers’ funds.

For her inactions, the St Paul’s Bay mayor left your correspondent with no option but to declare that “St Paul’s Bay has a very ineffective lady mayor”.

I have two similar, if not worse, experiences with correspondence sent to public officials.

On November 21, 2014 I sent an email regarding a locality matter to a senior official at Transport Malta.

After various reminders I managed to receive a reply on April 21, 2015 – five full months later with an original acknowledgement being received also onmy insistence.

More recently, on July 21, I sent an email, also concerning a locality matter, to a senior minister with a copy to the Prime Minister for any action the latter deemed fit to take. Notwithstanding my reminders, I am still without an acknowledgement from either of the honourable gentlemen let alone a reply.

Using your correspondent’s yardstick vis-a-vis the mayor of St Paul’s Bay, would I be correct to say that, in the first case, Transport Malta has a very ineffective senior official and, in the second case, Malta has a very ineffective senior minister (not to involve the Prime Minister who was also copied in).

In these two cases the three officials are also “handsomely paid out of taxpayers’ coffers”, not to say much more handsomely than the lady mayor of St Paul’s Bay.