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Kurt Sansone
The Senglea local council has been shown the red card by the Department of Local Government after chalking up a deficit and making illegal donations to various entities in the locality.
In a letter dated 16 September, seen by MaltaToday, the department asked the council for an explanation as to why it ended up with a deficit for the second quarter of the year. By law, Local Councils cannot run at a deficit.
The department also said it could not accept a situation whereby the council went ahead with donations amounting to hundreds of liri to organisations in the locality despite the deficit.
Contacted for his reaction to the department’s damning letter, Senglea Mayor Joseph Casha would not comment. The Labour Mayor insisted that the council has responded to the points raised by the department. “I will not divulge what we have written because that is an issue between the council and the department,” Casha said when pressed for his reaction to the department’s claim that the council made illegal donations.
The irony of the situation is that on 17 September, during a council meeting where the department’s damning letter was on the agenda, the Mayor insisted with the other four councillors that he wanted to discuss an additional expense of Lm250 as part of Senglea’s participation in a campaign organised by the Malta Tourism Authority.
Casha would not comment when asked why he wanted the council to discuss the contribution despite the department’s accusations and clear warning.
It seems that Casha is not heeding his own Party’s call for government to reduce expenditure and continues to spend money irrespective of the council’s financial situation.
A similar situation occurred on 12 August when during a meeting of the Labour-led council, despite knowing full well that there was a deficit of Lm2,477, the council still approved four Lm50 donations.
It transpires from the department’s letter that between 19 April and 8 June the council paid the Queen’s Own Band the sum of Lm300 as a donation for a musical academy. “This is considered to be an illegal donation and cannot be made,” the department’s letter stated.
The council also made two payments amounting to Lm150 and Lm348 respectively to the group that organises the external feast in the locality for the organising of a ‘Maltese Night.’ The department asked the council to comment on these payments.
In addition, the department asked the council to refrain from entering into further financial commitments apart from contractual obligations, to present a programme on how to eliminate the deficit and present its accounts on a monthly basis.
Despite these conditions Labour councillor Mario Mizzi still went ahead presenting a hand-written note to the council’s executive secretary asking him to put on the agenda three events - an outing, a coffee morning and a high tea event - his sub-committee wanted to organise for October.
Not all is well at the Senglea council and on various occasions the mayor has been accused of taking decisions unilaterally. On one occasion he asked the council to approve the payment of Lm150 to the Labour Party’s Guze Ellul Mercer Foundation for an educational course that was soon coming to an end. The councillors were never asked for approval prior to the commencement of the course.
On 28 August, two employees assigned to the local council were caught by the only Nationalist councillor, painting the façades of the Church’s store room and the Labour Party’s Brigade club house next door. When the councillor informed the mayor that what the employees were doing was illegal according to local council regulations, the mayor minimised the situation. Eventually, the employees were asked to stop what they were doing.
kurt@newsworksltd.com
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