Labour leader plans to stop local warden ‘racket’ in councils reform

Opposition leader Joseph Muscat will embark on a reform of the way the local wardens system is being financed by local councils, in his strongest declaration yet at the way the councils are managing taxpayers’ money.

Writing in General Workers Union daily l-orizzont, Muscat strongly hinted that he will stop the “racket” being subsidised by citizens where “the bulk of the cash received by councils is going... to two companies.”

Muscat referred to PQs tabled by Labour MP Justyne Caruana, in which no minister could reply as to where €4 million in fines paid up between January 2010 and March 2011 had been distributed amongst councils and private contractors.

“The days of big fish taking up everything are over... I’m standing up to this subsidised racket and no unspoken agreement will stop me.”

Wardens are provided by private firms and then farmed out to local councils, which are regionally grouped in nine ‘joint committees’. The three warden agencies – Guard & Warden, Sterling Security and Aurelia Asset Protection – manage the allocation of wardens as determined by the joint committee. Datatrak IT Services provides the technical infrastructure and support to sustain the process management.

The revenue from wardens’ tickets and speed camera fines are pooled together, from which the wardens and IT expenses are then deducted. The surplus is then divided among councils in proportion to the number of fines collected within their locality.

However, mayors have previously complained to MaltaToday that their councils were not reaping anything from the system.

Birkirkara mayor Michael Fenech Adami claimed his council raked in nothing, while Lija mayor Ian Castaldi Paris described the warden system as a burden on the council. Mqabba council was forced to pay €10,000 in 2008 because it did not receive enough cash from the fines.

In another stark warning, Joseph Muscat also indicated he will not be supporting Labour candidates and incumbents in the March 2012 local elections that “want to keep working in the present system where councils have become extensions of the government’s bureaucracy. Their time is up.”

MaltaToday understands that Muscat is planning on vetting candidates’ lists and that he will not approve “persons whose place is not with Labour’s candidates.”

Joseph Muscat has referred to a minority of councillors who have built a “wall of bureaucracy that has turned them into another government department… Sometimes I have been in a surreal situation in trying to elicit a simple answer from these people as to why a road was not completed or whose responsibility road mending was.”

The party has had its fair share of council problems, with Labour councillors forcing the resignation of Fgura mayor Darren Marmarà and more recently when Mosta mayor Paul Chetcuti Caruana ordered some six council employees to tear up a page from the council magazine featuring an article penned by fellow Labour councillor Josette Agius Decelis, which referred to a series of PQs on Mosta roads tabled by her husband, Labour MP Anthony Agius Decelis.

“These elections are going to be very hard for Labour... I can play the hypocritical game and use the elections as an electoral ploy. Or we can be honest without ourselves and try and change things,” Muscat said in his l-orizzont piece.

Muscat also said he was mindful that his route is “risky” and might cost him the local council elections in March 2012.

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