Joseph Gatt - Profile
Political Party: Nationalist
Government Position: Mayor | Projects, Infrastructure, Finance, PPP, collaboration with Enforcement (Police/LESA) and Community Policing, Traffic Management Committee, Tenders Award Board, Interview Board, Facebook Page.
Previous Job: N/A
Current Job: In Malta, mayors aren’t normal full-timers, therefore, Joseph Gatt’s other day job is an assistant manager at the Water Services Corporation
Previous Projects
Questions (Answers translated from Maltese)
What were your goals when you originally ran for Mayor, and to what extent do you feel that you have achieved them?
First of all, always making Mosta a better place.Basically, when you are at our point as mayors and stuff like that, you have a lot of projects in mind, which you have to have time to do, but according to the plan for these 5 years running, we’re making the best out of it.
Practically, we’re going to have three big projects as a local council of Mosta.
The dog park in Santa Margherita
Belvedere in Gharusa tal Mosta
And the garden in Zammit reservoir is going to be refurbished as well.
At the moment, we’re also working on a community garden. It is always about improving the locality, but it is a big task. We’re moving onto it.
Have you gained any soft skills from your previous work/employment that have helped you in your current position as Mayor of Mosta?
I was a councillor before, so I served for 5 years as a councillor which was a stepping stone for me to know the work of a mayor. Although, when you are a mayor, the difficulties are much higher.
You are always involved in the talks, the discussion, the planning, and the every day running of the local council.
It helped me a bit, but only to a certain extent, because when you are a mayor you have new difficulties that you face every day.How do you usually identify which issues in Mosta should be prioritised by the Local Council?
Mainly, the problem with local councils in Malta is that people see them as customer care for the government of Malta. So basically,, everyone who needs the government calls the local council,, and we have to deal with it. But then, as a local council, we mostly prioritise where there are big demands in certain areas.
At the moment, we are dealing a lot with the rubbish problem, and there are a lot of new people coming to live in Mosta. Basically, the population in Mosta has increased since last December, where it was 26,000 and has come up to almost 29,000. That’s 3,000 people more, and the schedules of the rubbish collectors are having a problem. We have to prioritise them, things that are the most concerning for even people’s health sometimes.At the moment, there is also a problem with hornets. We have a problem in the region to deal with. We have to prioritise health concerns most of all, and try to solve them first of all.
Through projects like the Tal-Wej site rubbish cleanup, partial pedestrianisation reversal in Mosta Square, or Ġnien Għarusa ta’ Mosta’s open space, what was the feedback of Mosta citizens? What are your thoughts on it?
For the closure of the square, the feedback was that an average of 70-75% of citizens don’t agree with the closure of the square; mainly because mosta is like what we call a bypass.You have the Morth region which is St Paul’s Bay, Mellieha, Mgarr, Bidnieja, etc. These are all localities which use Mosta as a bypass to go to other cities like Birkirkara, Valletta and Sliema. So, the problem of closing the square is a concerning problem because of the movement of cars situation.
On the other hand, we also found a problem with the public transport. When the square is closed, people can’t use the bus stops in the square, so they would have to walk for a while to simply catch a bus. People with less mobility have to go on for a mile to get another bus route.
Business also suffered. The main problem of the Mosta square was that a parking area was not tackled. From my personal point of view, there should have been a government made, public parking area before tackling the project of the Square, and it could be closed 24/7 as long as there is adequate parking.
There is another main problem, being the Mosta Health centre. The carrying capacity of the Mosta health centre takes all the north region and a part of the central region. Lets say; St Paul’s Bay, Mellieha, Mgarr, Burmarrad, Bidnieja, Naxxar, Birkirkara. They are all coming to the Mosta health centre. When the roads are closed and people are in an emergency, they cannot come to the health centre. That is a main concern as well, but obviously the government overruled our position as a council where we made a vote as a council and they decided to overrule it.
Are there any projects or ideas that you would like to implement in Mosta but have faced difficulties in doing so?
Yes. The biggest issue is the land, basically. As I said before, there are a lot of projects in mind which I mentioned previously - like the community garden which we’re trying to make where people can garden themselves and another area which will have a new garden. The problem we are facing is that the lands department has to verify if the land is government owned, private owned, or if a person is renting land from the government. Then when they verify all these three, if its government owned, you as a council have to go to the government, you need to tell them that there is a piece of land, what you’re planning on doing, and get funding - which takes a lot of time.
Basically, i have three projects in hand but i’m waiting for the land’s clearance in malta to clear the land for us. I’ve been waiting for the past 8 months. That is the situation, where you have a lot of projects in mind but you cannot continue, and time will pass where you’re waiting, working on it, and that takes years.