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Oct 24 - GSD Welcomes “Picardo’s Personal Damascene Conversion” On Public Debt

The GSD Opposition says it notes what it describes as the “boast” made by the Chief Minister at the Financial Services lunch during Gibraltar Day in London that the net public debt of Gibraltar is 25% of GDP.

The GSD Opposition says it would like to remind the Chief Minister that when the net public debt was 25% of GDP in 2011, “he vociferously criticised it as being too high and issued a communiqué saying that the GSD ‘was addicted to debt’.”

Indeed, says the Opposition, when it was consistently argued that net public debt remained the only sensible measure of public debt, Mr Picardo argued gross debt was the only relevant figure for analysis and in page 6 of the GSLP-Liberal manifesto he stated that “gross debt is the relevant figure for analysis of national debt [when] considering national debt of any country”.

Whilst the GSD says that it is glad of “Mr. Picardo‘s personal Damascene conversion” on the issue of public debt and the electorate will decide next year “whether they can trust someone who has so clearly misled the people for his own political gain,” the GSD would also like to remind the community that quite apart from the net public debt, the Government has caused the Gibraltar Savings Bank to invest £400 million in Credit Finance Company Limited and that the latter has already spent £70 million of that money on payment of Civil Servant pensions, loans to third parties such as the Sunborn and to allow certain individuals and companies to pay off their arrears (including taxes) to Government.

The Opposition stresses that there can be no realistic analysis of public debt without taking into account that indirect public debt in the amounts spent by Credit Finance.

Daniel Feetham, the Leader of the Opposition, said: “Everyone can see that the Government is spending money as if there is no tomorrow funded by direct and indirect public debt”.

“It is the GSLP-Liberals that are clearly addicted to debt; an addiction that, if we are not careful, will be paid for by children and our children’s children because huge public debt is simply either deferred future taxation or deferred drop in the future standard of living or both”.