Jul 24 - GSD Says Government Must Take Responsibility For Power Supply Problems
The GSD Opposition yesterday issued a lengthy statement which forms the latest chapter in the heated exchanges on Gibraltar’s power supply problems. Here it is in full:
The role of a Government, above all others, is to act in a responsible manner at all times and choose its priorities carefully. The current Government seem completely unable to accept this and wishes only to attempt to tarnish 16 years of success for Gibraltar under the GSD. It is not the role of the Opposition to be apologists for any shortcomings of that administration but to hold the present administration to account for its spectacular errors of judgement and to look to the future and present the people of Gibraltar with its own vision of how Gibraltar should develop.
Anybody who cares to read the Manx energy report will soon realise that it does not represent an indictment of the GSD government as the GSLP are trying to imply. The fact is that the focus of the report is not on Gibraltar’s future energy needs but on organisational issues such as staff related matters. It is noteworthy, for example, that the Recommendations or Conclusions sections are silent on this issue. The Government has been hard pressed to find references dug deep inside the report (in two instances according to them) in order to use as a stick to hit the Opposition with. Even then what the report’s authors suggest coincides with the timings of the previous GSD Government’s plans to build the power station and was in keeping with the time-line suggested in the report in the context of the plant life of the Waterport Power Station which took it to about 2009.
If only the same could be said of the Government’s own fishing report, whose main recommendations have been abandoned, or the Knight report on the Fire Brigade which sits unfulfilled or the Langan report for the GHA which after 20 months remains unpublished.
That there had been delays in the delivery of new power generation does not negate the fact that contracts were ready for construction of a new power station at Lathbury and that, had these not been cancelled by the GSLP Government, we would now be close to completion, if not already completed, and the present unacceptable instability in power supply would be a thing of the past. What the Government cannot do is take this action and then try to blame the previous administration for the consequences of frequent and lengthy power cuts. The GSLP Government must take responsibility for their actions.
Further, it is not true to say that the GSD would end the 40% subsidy by the taxpayer of the price of electricity. However the Opposition does not believe it is responsible for the Chief Minister to now suggest that his Government might bring the price of electricity to the consumer down if we move to a gas powered power station. The Government has already made too many promises which it is funding through direct and indirect borrowing and it cannot behave as if the good times are going to last forever.
It is however also right that we should have a debate about the appropriateness of a universal subsidy by the taxpayer as opposed to more targeted one to those that need it. Is it right, for example, that the taxpayer should subsidize by 40% the electricity cost of a millionaire wishing to heat his pool? This is part of the culture of entitlement which the GSD is keen to move away from and which it has already taken steps to tackle in its well received policy on means testing for Government housing.
A GSD spokesman said “While the Government, led by Fabian Picardo, continues to deny responsibility for its actions, the GSD, by contrast, is on the record as saying that despite deep reservations about the design and location of the new power station, should it be given the opportunity to form a government, it would proceed with those plans assuming they were sufficiently mature. The GSD will always take a view that what is best for Gibraltar must always be set above party politics. It did this when it came to office in 1996 by not raking over what had gone before and it will do this in the future. Responsible Government and a vision for Gibraltar is what the GSD offers.”
