Long-running Buġibba square works show need for stronger councils, ADPD says

Local councils should no longer be left powerless while ministries and government agencies take decisions affecting their communities, ADPD has said.

ADPD chairperson Sandra Gauci and deputy chairperson Carmel Cacopardo were speaking on Thursday during a press conference at Buġibba square, where works on a long-awaited regeneration project are still underway.

As they spoke, workers in high-visibility vests appeared to be putting the finishing touches to the square, while construction noise echoed across the area and tourists walked past.

“Today we are blessed with the miracle of having workers here,” Gauci said sarcastically, referring to the long-running project.

“The residents of this locality know we haven’t seen workers here for a while,” she added.

Gauci said St Paul’s Bay mayor Censu Galea had visited the square several times and found nobody working on site.

“Now all of a sudden they appeared and are working nonstop to manage everything before the election date,” she said.

Bubibba Square nine days before the election Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

The Buġibba square project started at the beginning of last year and is expected to be completed by this summer at a cost of €10 million.

However, the project has run into controversy in recent months, with residents and tourists complaining about the state of the square. Some have described it as a “mess”, citing what they called “never-ending construction works”.

Gauci said businesses around the square had also told her the works had negatively affected them, with one business claiming it had “lost up to a million euros”.

“This is just pr before the election and then after god knows,” she said.

“We at the council have become just a customer care with no power at all,” Gauci continued.

She also criticised what she described as a lack of consultation with the council, including over the type of trees to be planted in the square.

She said communication between the authorities and the council had been poor, adding that authorities did not always reply to the council’s emails.

Gauci said she sometimes felt embarrassed when residents asked her about the project because she could not provide the answers she would like to, due to a lack of information beign provided to the council.

She argued this showed why the management of localities should be placed in the hands of local councils, rather than ministries.

The Bugibba Sqaure nine days before the election Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Cacopardo echoed that point, saying: “We need to practise the principle of subsidiarity.”

Subsidiarity is the principle that social and political issues should be handled at the most immediate local level capable of addressing them. A central or higher authority should only take on tasks that cannot be effectively handled at a more local level.

ADPD’s manifesto proposes that the principle of subsidiarity be acknowledged in the Constitution as a guide for the country's public administration. The party also wants the principle to be applied to environmental issues, including land-use planning.

Cacopardo said ADPD wanted public administration to be decentralised, with day-to-day administration transferred to regional and local councils.

Under that model, he said, central government would act as a regulator, while regional and local government would serve as the operator.

Cacopardo said that when major projects were proposed, especially those requiring an environmental impact assessment, “the word of the local council will be binding”.

He said ADPD would also be open to locality-based referendums when necessary.

The party said applying subsidiarity would mean agencies such as Transport Malta would no longer make primary decisions before councils were consulted.

It said the system would be more transparent and would reduce the influence of political loyalists in decision-making.