Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/916779
maltatoday SUNDAY 17 DECEMBER 2017 Interview 15 The Prime Minister's call for army involvement in policing Malta's crime 'hotspots' has evoked visions of lawlessness and mob rule in places like Marsa, among others. But veteran councillor (and current mayor) FRANS DEBONO, while welcoming the acknowledgement of his home town's problems, argues it has more to do with political will and Malta's endemic law enforcement limitations ties associated with the Dockyard. Cottonera started to regenerate only after the dockyard closed. Af- ter that, the area improved drasti- cally. Having said that, it remains a fact that ALL of Malta's heavy industry is sited in the south of the island... In fact, a very common complaint in Marsa is that the area has traditionally been viewed as a 'dumping site' for all Malta's 'unwanted issues' – be they polluting industries, or social measures such as an open centre for migrants. Do you feel this way too? Up to a point, it's undeniable. Traditionally, the excuse was always that we are 'close to the harbour'. And it used to be true: before the Freeport was opened in Marsaxlokk, practically all Malta's commercial or industrial shipping used to take place in the Grand Harbour. But unfortunately, there is another dimension to the issue. If a locality doesn't have its own minister or prominent MP hailing from it... it's like you don't have your own horse in the race. In 25 years, no 'Marsi' was ever a gov- ernment MP or member of Cabi- net. And what did we get from the government in those 25 years? Nothing. In the 1980s, we used to have Dr Joe Brincat [former dep- uty prime minister]... but from then on, Marsa has never elected a government MP. It shouldn't be this way, but that fact has always kept us back. And then, when the local councils were established in the 1990s, the people of Marsa began to increasingly turn to the council for their needs. Even if the local council does not necessarily have the power or resources to address those needs... Yet the Marsa Local Council itself seems to have a few resources: the building we are in, for instance, is arguably the largest and most impressive local council headquarters I've ever seen... But we didn't start like that. Ask anyone here, and they'll tell you. At the beginning we hardly even had a road with tarmac, or a pub- lic garden to speak of. When this council was first set up in 1994, and I became its first mayor... we didn't have an office at all. We were given a disused room at the Marsa police station. Where can you go from there? How can a local council be expected to ad- minister to the locality's needs, when all it is given is an empty room in a police station? And an empty police station, too. For long years, the Marsa police sta- tion was closed nearly all the time. We spent almost 20 years operating from that room... until we managed to have this build- ing erected. And it was built from the local council's own income: not out of any additional funding given to us by the central govern- ment. Unfortunately, the council found no help from government... when compared to other locali- ties, some of which were given prime locations for their local councils. All the same, I'm not complaining. I'm not sorry it hap- pened that way. After all, I am one of the few in this country who was active in local councils from day one. When you have a long-term vision, you look ahead to where you want to take the locality... not backwards, to where it used to be. The government of the day had no real strategy to deal with the crisis; perhaps because it never expected the situation to get so bad, and so wasn't really prepared. Whatever the case, they looked at the problem from a short-term perspective, not a long- term one. The important thing was to find a place where to put all these people IMMIGRATION rnments forgot...