Swieqi is facing a crisis

Even though the Swieqi local council has stepped up its efforts to keep the locality clean and orderly, it is evident that the problems persist.

Year in, year out, summer after summer, residents have to face the awful situation of mounds of garbage disposed illegally on their pavements and street corners. They have to endure countless sleepless nights and experience vandalism on their property and their cars. This is simply not right and it surely does not contribute to the wellbeing of the locality and its residents who deserve much better.

Rightfully residents are very angry and frustrated and they turn to the Local council for a solution. They do not want to hear excuses; they want lasting solutions. They want the local council to defend their sacrosanct right to live in a clean and tranquil locality that is primarily a residential area; a locality where most of the roads are termed as 'residential priority areas', which means no commercial activity can be carried out.

The stark reality is that local councils are absolutely helpless in such situations. We simply do not have tools to combat the situation, be they of a financial or legislative nature. We are as helpless as an abandoned child.

Local councillors are as frustrated and angry as residents. We are eager and determined to defend the locality and its residents but we are inhibited from doing so. We have never shied away from any of the locality’s numerous problems and have always informed central government, different authorities and entities about our problems and we have even offered solutions. But no reaction has been forthcoming.

Ten years ago, precisely on 25 February 2016, we informed the then Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis that short-lets where mushrooming in the locality and were causing garbage and security problems besides others. We proposed solutions and even asked the ministry to cooperate and to help us solve the problems. Ten years later, Swieqi is facing a crisis!

Unfortunately, over the years nothing concrete has been done to solve the problems that we are facing. We keep talking and discussing, hoping that someone will take the bull by its horns, but unfortunately none of that has happened. Successive ministers failed miserably and whereas we were under the impression that former Tourism Minister Ian Borg may have been on the right track to solve our daily ordeals, he was been abruptly replaced after the election. Do we need to start hoping all over again?

I must thank the Community police and officials from the Malta Tourism Authority for their continuous and tremendous help. Had it not been for them, matters would have been much worse.

The increase in the popularity of short lets did not happen overnight but unfortunately the government never stepped in to regulate the market, which has now grown exponentially and in an unregulated manner. We are not against the concept of short-term accommodation but rather against the fact that such an activity is totally unregulated and uncontrolled. This is causing all the problems that the locality is facing with regards to night disturbances, unruly behaviour, vandalism and garbage shambles. The locality is in crisis mode.

It is evident that a long term and lasting solution depends on the application of tough and radical measures. It is useless to fantasise, experiment or dream of doing what isn’t doable. We need solutions that are suitable for our realities.

The time for concrete action has arrived. We have been talking and discussing, arguing and debating, writing and proposing. We organised press conferences and even set up a working group with Reġjun Lvant that included all the stakeholders with the intention of finding a solution to the garbage problems. Yet, matters keep worsening.

Last year we proposed 12 cardinal points, which in our opinion will help solve the problems that we are facing. One of these points included on-the-spot-fines. Before the general election we were promised that this measure would come into force by 1 June. One month has lapsed since and no one has heard anything about its implementation!

Enough is enough. We cannot keep on failing our locality. Solutions exist. What we need is the will from government to move ahead with solutions that are lasting.