Azzopardi defends eleventh-hour electoral pledge to hawkers

Jason Azzopardi defends eleventh-hour electoral pledge for monti relocation • Video Ray Attard

Shadow justice minister Jason Azzopardi has defended his decision to pledge the relocation of monti hawkers to Ordnance Street in Valletta, on 9 March 2013, the day of voting during the last general election.

Taking questions from the press, Azzopardi said he made the pledge after hawkers informed him that they had struck a deal with the Labour Party president Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi.

“It is unfair that the people are being governed by a Prime Minister who has become a hostage to promises made in the name of gaining more votes prior to the 2013 elections," Azzopardi said, criticising the planned relocation of the hawkers to Ordnance Street and beneath the new parliament.

Azzopardi said Labour's agreement was never published, despite being brokered just 42 hours before the general elections in 2013.

“This is the main difference between the Nationalist Party and the Labour Party,” he said.

The e-mail to the hawkers from Azzopardi specified that the hawkers could be moved to Ordnance street but not spill over into the City Gate area. “The e-mail clearly states that hawkers would not be allowed to set up their stalls right next to the majestic parliament building but instead for them to perhaps use Ordnance street. Furthermore, the e-mail shows that hawkers would have much the same conditions as before, with no mention of this being a permanent set up.”

Azzopardi added that he had no problem with this e-mail becoming common knowledge, and that he had indeed published himself. He invited the government to do the same with its own agreement in the name of the transparency it was so fond of prior to the elections.