My dear friend Eddie Aquilina recently contributed an article to The Times glorifying Minister George Pullicino for a "fantastic" job with the pavements in Tower Road, Sliema. He then declared ''Sliema is fuming. The Sliema council needs to set out a strategy for central Sliema and work with the Sliema business community to start acting in Sliema's collective interest rather than in the usual jungle-style shabby frenzy". He mentions Sliema five times in one breath.

Sliema residents, in unison, scream out: What did Mr Pullicino ever do for the collective interest of our town? Ah, yes, he championed the Tigné eyesore and monitored the Fort Cambridge mess, the repugnant kerrejja on the ex-Galaxy site and the ever-present construction trucks and cranes all over the now-shabby town.

No wonder Mr Pullicino's support dwindled to nearly zilch in the last general election. He is the only Cabinet member who did not even achieve a first-count quota. In reality, he struggled until the umpteenth count for a pass at Parliament's door. Naturally, such failure is not an iota praiseworthy - none at all. His antics sent the Nationalist Party back to the absolute minority.

The hijacked-PN's face-savers were Labour's lethargy and sluggishness, which handed the blues a hairline victory on a silver platter - Lawrence Gonzi's digitally doctored poster-face, incumbency, media manipulation, promises, carrots and fabrications did influence the result too, to be honest. JPO? That's another story.

Had John Dalli had a little more time to work a little more on the Sliema district (he had Qormi to focus on and the back-stabbing to cure), Mr Pullicino would have received the redundancy pay-off and would have had to hire his own driver. Mr Dalli would have been elected from two districts, much to the envy of Mr Aquilina's waning and fading idol.

Then we had to witness the Prime Minister's abnormal logic when he again appointed struggling Mr Pullicino as minister, albeit with a diplomatic slap in the face, shorn of Mepa. I wonder what he does to charm Dr Gonzi who, in his questionable wisdom, summarily relegated Robert Arrigo, with two flights to glory to his credit (proving who holds Sliema's collective interest at heart), to a backbencher.

So, back to Mr Aquilina's disrespectful piece: Why extol a minister for a trivial job of some 100 metres of road - minus road lines - which took a month and a half to complete when such pittance should have been done in less than a fortnight? What is the reason to carp the hard-working local council?

Come on Mr Aquilina, give credit to whom it is due. Had it not been for the council's hard work, Sliema would have got much worse than it has from the minister's intransigence and obduracy.