From tourism police to night shelters: PN unveils 2,000 local government proposals

The Nationalist Party has launched a set of proposals for each of Malta’s locality ahead of this month’s local council elections.

Addressing a press conference, Secretary General Clyde Puli said the party was putting forward some 2,000 proposals in 68 localities across the island.

The programme, he said, included various types of proposals. “Some are proposals that apply to most localities and others are more specific.”

Puli said the PN wanted to take local councils to the next level and ensure they are truly able to function as local governments.

“Councils need to make the next step and to no longer remain councils for just pavements and light bulbs,” Puli said, insisting that the government had taken away local councils’ power by relieving them of the responsibility to carry out road works.

The proposals, Puli said would strengthen communities and their identity through integration, environmental programmes, and plans for public order in localities. He said that the PN wanted local enforcement carried out by wardens to once again be the responsibility of local councils.

“We must also introduce community policing. We want to see police officers that are friends of the people, that provide information to and educate the people,” Puli said.

The social sector was just as important as infrastructure, Puli said, stressing that the PN believed that there needed to be a social impact assessment for each locality in order to better understand the effect of the growth in population the country is going through.

He said that in an aging society there needed to be day and night shelters in every locality.

Puli also said that the autonomy of local councils needed to be protected, rather than have money taken away from them, while accusing the government of increasing bureaucracy that made it harder for local councils to spend funds that were allocated to them.

The PN, he said, was making these proposals because it believed in local councils and democracy. 

PN whip Roberet Cutajar said the party’s proposals included 80 which the party had proposed in parliament as part of the government’s local council reform, a majority of which, he said, had been ignored.

Cutajar said the party believed that in addition to community policing, areas which were often frequented by tourists also needed to tourism policing.

Turning to hamlets, he said that they should be strengthened, but argued that the government cancelled their election because the government is undemocratic.

Cutajar also said the PN was also proposing training programmes for local council staff.