Joseph Abela was appointed mayor in 2013.

The Labour mayor of Tarxien announced his resignation yesterday, citing lack of funds and internal hindrances as the main reasons for his decision.

In a statement uploaded on Facebook, Joseph Abela said he was resigning due to the impossibility “of administering a council for two whole years without any finances”.

Describing his decision as a difficult one and insisting he had tried to continue in his post despite the difficulties he faced, Mr Abela said the Local Councils Department had prevented the council from spending any money during his term.

He added that unspecified “internal hindrances” had made his task even harder.

Mr Abela, who could not be reached for further comment, was elected mayor in 2013 after previously having served as a councillor for two terms between 1994 and 2000.

Responding to the news, residents described him as a hard-working individual who had put a strong emphasis on cleanliness in the village, and who had on occasion undertaken duties on behalf of the council to save money.

A source within the Tarxien council told Times of Malta the news had come as a complete surprise as nothing had seemed out of the ordinary at recent council meetings.

He said the former mayor had been well-known for organising events in the locality, and suggested he may have been put off by the constraints placed on the council by its limited budgetary allocation.

The source added that the council had been under greater pressure in recent years as it was still bound to paying off road works that had been undertaken under the previous legislature.

The issue of local council funding has reared its head on several occasions over the last few years.

Late last year, the government revealed that the total debt level among local councils was of €22 million while a review by the National Audit Office in 2013 found that 32 local councils were in the red, almost half of the total, with 25 facing liquidity problems.