Labour mayor falls out of favour with his own councillors

Quinton Scerri accused of lack of transparency by Zabbar’s Labour, Nationalist councillors

26 August 2013, 12:00am
by Matthew Vella

2 min read

Quinton Scerri

Local councillors in Zabbar have come out in defence of the council's executive secretary Duncan Busuttil, in what seems to be a major show of no-confidence in Labour mayor Quinton Scerri.

In a letter, eight councillors out of the 11-man council, which included five Labour councillors and the three Nationalist councillors, said the mayor Scerri was not being transparent in his decision-making and was targeting the executive secretary unfairly.

Police had to be called in to intervene during the lasty meeting of the Zabbar local council, after weeks of tension between the mayor and the majority of councillors and the council's executive secretary.

The councillors have accused mayor Quinton Scerri of failing to control residents' behaviour during council meetings, in a bid to bolster his own position in the council.

Despite his top vote count of over 5,000 in the last local council elections, Scerri does not enjoy full support from other Labour councillors. The mayor has accused executive secretary Duncan Busuttil of not cooperating with him since his election, claiming that decisions in the council take too long to be implemented.

Councillors, namely deputy mayor Domenic Agius, Joseph Agius, Joseph Bonnici, Mark Grech, Joseph Vella (Labour) and Joseph Buttigieg, Anna Calleja, and Brian Spiteri (Nationalist) said Scerri was not at ease working with the council's executive secretary, whom they described has having run the council "impeccably" and whose sense of duty "had been recognised by both councillors and the public."

"The mayor's contention that Busuttil provoked those present at the meeting was utterly untrue, and it was clear that the provocation came from Mr Scerri and friends. As a matter of fact these were even cued to boo us councillors and to use disruptive language, with the mayor doing nothing here, when he knows too well that people present for a meeting must not pass deplorable comments, let alone boo and hurl snide remarks," the councillor said in a joint letter.

The councillors also accused Scerri of having taken decisions "arbitrarily and without any consultation" and of lack of transparency.

"The council minutes attest to this, particularly the barrage of questions we have been repeatedly putting to the mayor and which, to date, have not yet been answered. All this is leading to an unhappy predicament and an unacceptable state of affairs, which apparently the mayor is trying to pin onto Mr Busuttil," the councillor said.

Matthew Vella, a freelance journalist at MaltaToday, was formerly executive editor at Malt...

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As a resident of the Zabbar Housing Estate, I can conferm what Avukat have said in his post. I personally made contact with the Local Council about irresponsible dog owners that take their dogs for a walk in the housing estate and let their dogs do their natural needs wherever they like. They do not clean up after and leave everything in the streets. We had two members of the council living here, and one was the major himself, but how can he take any measures to stop these dog owners when his own wife used to take her dog out for a walk around the same housing estate.

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Can the Unholy Alliance who signed the letter explain how can the local council spend some six hundred euros a year on cans of coffee? Can they also explain how could the local council make 50,000 telephone calls a year? Can they explain how many calls they make from the mobile they are given paid by the taxpayers? Can they provide a list of calls to whom they were made and how much each call cost? Are the mobiles used also for personal callas/business? Just a few questions which they should answer in the public interest.

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You are perfectly correct Never Ending Story. Those counselors who signed the letter are the Unholy Alliance scratching each other's backs and got together because when the people have been grumbling against the council for a very long time for doing nothing useful for the locality will be shown in bad light when the new blood succeeds in showing them and the people how things should be done. Too many questions were being asked and not answered by the old counselors. Those living in the government housing estate know what you mean because notwithstanding thatthere were two counselors one of them the ex-Mayor it was left in a disastrous state including dog's shitting all over the place and their owners not picking it up. Does this mean anything to some counselors wives and their dogs, I wonder?

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Haga ohra - The Nationalist Councillors were seen with the Mayor on both recent events organised by the local council (Food festival and longest table) - so it is OK for these people biex jidhru mas-Sindku imbaghad they go and stab him in the back????? BRAVI EH

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Incredible! So Bloody Incredible! I have lived in Zabbar all my life and before the MARCH ELECTION you would not realise that there was a Local Council - the same local council that had people like Domenic Agius, Joseph Agius, Joseph Bonnici, Mark Grech and Joseph Vella in it - the SAME PEOPLE who were outside voting stations telling people not to Vote for Quinton Scerri because he is a Super One personality. This is a sabotage attack on Mr. Scerri, his driven character, and the fact that he convinced 5000 voters to change the mayorship of Zabbar is making everyone JEALOUS! YES, Jealous - because I am sure that people like Domenic Agius, and Mark Grech Wanted to be elected a Mayors and the other councillors just wanted to continue living the unaltered council life .

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Majority of zabbar councillors against what? Why dont they say they are re elected labour councillors from the old local zabbar council to which haz zabbar is a disgrace of a town next to its neighbouring towns and villages. Zabbar needed new blood and thats why they elected their new mayor to make changes for the good of haz zabbar. So if these other councillors don't like it they should resign. Plus the pn councillors are just taking advantage of this sqabble.

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Li ma ridux ninsew hu li jista jkun hemm xi forma ta sabutagg ghal fatt li sur Scerri rebah is sindku wara hafna snin taht l istess sindku. Sinjuri kusilliera li qeghdin taht il Labour ticket thallux min jinqeda bikhom, ikun ahjr li twarbu u taghmlu post ghal haddiehor. Keep it sur Scerri Zabbar warajk.