Oct 20 - GSLP Defends Its Record On Housing
The Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party has said that it would like to make a short statement in reply to the GSD Chairman’s interview on GBC last week in particular regarding the construction of houses for rental.
Mr Hammond insisted, says the GSLP, that the GSD remains and is committed to ‘build more rental accommodation if returned to office next year.’ However, the GSLP says that, considering that the GSD is so concerned about spending, what money would they use to pay for this? Their ‘commitment’, says the party, was included in numerous GSD manifestos over four elections from 1996. It was a last ditch attempt to win votes towards the end of their last term when they rushed to honour that so called ‘commitment’.
The GSD Chairman also stated that the GSD is the only party to have built any ‘government rental accommodation in the past twenty years.’ This is not surprising, says the GSLP, given that the party were in office for sixteen of those twenty years, adding that their record, “if one can call it that, is not something to brag about.”
In just two terms in office, says the GSLP, the previous GSLP government built 200 homes for the rental stock in Glacis, Laguna, St John’s Court and St Jago’s – including 125 2RKB for pensioners at Sir William Jackson Grove.
When the GSD Came into office in 1996, the housing waiting list, left by the GSLP Government, stood at 456 applicants. In 2011, when the present GSLP Liberal Alliance came into office, the waiting list had shot up to 1600 applicants. “So much for commitment to rental housing and housing in general!”
The GSLP says that for the GSLP Liberal Government, a manifesto is a commitment and not just a wish list. The evidence for this is, it says, there for all to see and there is still “work in progress” on housing.
