Former Żabbar mayor Quinton Scerri will be taking legal action over a report which concluded he was not a credible or reliable person. Mr Scerri said when contacted he was seeking legal advice regarding the report compiled by the Local Governance Board. He deemed the conclusions reached as “unfounded” and said the report made “baseless” allegations about him which tarnished his reputation.

“The report was unfounded, unfair and contains a number of mistakes and inaccuracies, besides expressing opinions intended to damage my credibility,” he said.

Mr Scerri resigned from the Żabbar council on Tuesday after the damning report, which accused him of irresponsibility and acting outside the law, was made public. He is contesting the conclusions and claims he was denied a fair hearing.

Given such conflict of interest, he could have never guaranteed me a fair hearing

The board, headed by lawyer and former Labour international secretary Joe Mifsud, said Mr Scerri’s strong showing at the polls “must have gone to his head” and prompted him to forget all procedures on how a council was run.

“Mr Scerri managed things in an irresponsible and amateur way that does not even befit a band club, let alone a local government,” it added, saying Mr Scerri had acted outside the law when he set up an action team to organise cultural events without seeking the council’s approval.

None of the councillors knew who the team members were and no financial records were presented for the organisation of two cultural events last year, the report said.

However, Mr Scerri claims “manoeuvres” had taken place so he would be removed from his post to make space for someone else.

He questions why there was so much “resistance” to his request for one of the board members, a Labour stalwart of the 1980s, Ronnie Pellegrini, to refrain from participating in the probe. The report said the ex-mayor failed to provide a valid reason why he wanted Mr Pellegrini to step down but Mr Scerri said it was obvious why he had made such a request.

Mr Scerri and the board exchanged correspondence, which Times of Malta has seen, in which he requested Mr Pellegrini’s abstention. The call came in a reply to an e-mail informing him that he was being investigated. The reason he had given was that Mr Pellegrini had expressed himself against him in public regarding the matter.

“You cannot have someone who spoke about you negatively in the past sit on a board that is deciding something about me. You cannot have confidence in that person,” he said.

He added: “Given such conflict of interest, he could have never guaranteed me a fair hearing. It cannot be any clearer than this. I am therefore seeking legal advice. My lawyers are looking into all this and all options are being left open.”

Rapped for ‘attempted frame-up’

The Local Governance Board rapped former Żabbar mayor Quinton Scerri, accusing him of trying to frame a councillor by inventing an incident that did not happen.

Mr Scerri told the board he had received an anonymous call about a hit-and-run incident involving the council’s van. The police were not informed of any incident and no report had been filed. Eventually, Mr Scerri apologised to councillor Joseph Agius, who he had alleged was involved in the accident, and even gave him a box of pastries.

In its report, the board said it believed the incident had not taken place and was also convinced that not even the anonymous call existed, adding that the whole matter had been “made up” by Mr Scerri.

It said he “created traces of an incident that had not taken place”, in breach of the code of ethics. However, there was no criminal basis for prosecution.

Mr Scerri was also investigated over the fact that he had not informed the council of his family connection with Joseph Vella, a director of Central Asphalt Ltd, when the council awarded it a contract worth €160,000.

Although he did not declare that Mr Vella was his uncle when he participated in the decision and signed the works contract, the board found that he had not breached the law.

Mr Scerri was, however, reprimanded over his involvement in surreptitious recordings in an attempt to entrap a person. In one of the recordings, a contractor, Christopher Bonnici, is heard saying he expected to be given preferred treatment because he had helped Mr Scerri in his election.

The outgoing mayor was also rapped over his attempt to remove the council’s executive secretary, Duncan Busuttil, when he started collecting signatures for his removal. The board said this was not the procedure which Mr Scerri should have used if he wanted to change the executive secretary.

The board heard Mr Busuttil explain how Mr Scerri had made his life at the council miserable, with “psychological torture... anxiety... and hostility”. He told the board Mr Scerri had not paid him for a month, when their relations had gone downhill, and his pay cheque had to be issued directly by the Local Government Department.