News | Sunday, 16 August 2009

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Qormi residents ‘pee-ed' off at urine runoff

David Darmanin
‘Gents’ took an all new meaning at the latrine in Sqaq iż-Żenqa, in Qormi. While the doors of the public convenience were shut down a few months ago, passers-by have taken to urinating on them, leaving a putrid stench as puddles of urine and human excrement lay drying in the blazing August sun.
Qormi mayor Jesmond Aquilina, who said the latrine is about to be turned into a modern facility, even said that people had abused the public convenience “to an unimaginable extent: someone had even kept a horse in there.”
Residents of the alley, located just off St Francis Square, have complained about the local council’s delays in rebuilding the facility.
“I complained to the local council on more than one occasion,” an angry neighbour said. “They do everything by the doorstep here. Today it’s urine, tomorrow it could be something else. The council is saying it doesn’t have enough money to re-open the public convenience.”
But mayor Jesmond Aquilina said money is not the issue. “The building that is housing the public convenience is unsafe, so it needs to be demolished and rebuilt. The plan is to create a modern facility – a latrine with disabled access too.”
A call for tenders to rebuild the latrine closed recently, and the council is now in the process of evaluating the applicants to see whose bid is most convenient.

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