It is with regret and a deep sense of disappointment that I write this letter. While efforts are being made to nurture a more mature political discourse at a national level, local council politics remain, at least in certain villages, mired in partisan bickering. As a local councillor for Attard I am experiencing this first hand.
As is my duty towards all Attard residents, I prepared an analysis of the year's work and identified a list of strengths and weaknesses that we need to work on. This analysis, in the form of an article, was meant for inclusion in our regular information leaflet that is published at this time of the year. Petty as it may sound, I was told by the council's executive secretary that this was not being included on the grounds that it was received late, a claim that I strongly refute.
Nonetheless, upon my insistence, it was agreed that a separate sheet was to be inserted with the main leaflet and distributed as normal practice. However, at the very last minute I was told by the same executive secretary that the mayor and his deputy deemed my letter too partisan and decided to remove it from the council's publication.
Attard residents deserve to be better represented, and certainly better informed. What's partisan, I ask, in highlighting that very little progress has been registered during this last year? We as councillors are duty-bound to explain to the people we represent why our finances have been deteriorating to such an extent that we can only service the very urgent demands.
True, the government allocation is a pittance compared to the burden of ever-increasing responsibilities the council is being asked to shoulder. But this in itself cannot explain why the council has also failed to implement what has been left on the drawing board for at least seven years now. The council urgently needs new and accessible offices to operate from.
If being partisan equates to publicly requesting the council to hold more meetings with Malta Environment and Planning Authority representatives in a bid to ease the problems faced by Attard residents as a result of lack of enforcement, then, yes, I don't mind being partisan. To my mind, however, this is not partisanship.
I will refrain from recounting the countless times we Labour councillors have been told to back the undercurrents and the backstabbing currently ongoing within the Nationalist councillors' ranks in an attempt to remove the mayor from office through indirect means other than by refusing his nomination for re-election in a year's time.
Since we believe that the interest of the locality should come first we have refused to give our support to this hidden agenda. We believe that such a democratic right as choosing one's representative is the prerogative of our fellow Attard residents. If this is being partisan, then I am guilty as charged.
Our fellow residents deserve to be informed, not deceived or even worse, kept in the dark as they currently are.