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GSD Says Government Should “House those in Need and Reform the System”

The GSD says the Government cannot lose sight of the case of El Khalil Lyaacoubi adding that it needs to deal with it and other similar cases and “not go off on a tangent.” The party says that case raises the issue of how housing is being allocated today in 2021 and that it should be applied in a way that achieves housing for this gentleman now.

A statement continued: “The Government says that 61 medical or social cases were allocated houses in last year’s batch of 176. That still raises the issue of why cases like those of El Khalil Lyaacoubi were not in that batch when he is living in clearly inhumane and appalling conditions.

“For the Government to turn a case where they are obviously failing into a statement that attacks the Opposition smacks of a desperate attempt to cover its failings. To then go beyond that and say that they are “extremely satisfied” of their record just shows a galling disregard of terrible housing conditions of the individual in front of their very eyes. Where is their empathy? It would have been expected that the Government would simply have dealt with the case without more and rehoused him or any others in his situation.

“Instead the Government is “extremely satisfied”. This from a Government that said before the 2011 election that it would house everyone that was on the housing list before 2011 and hasn’t even done that. The political point is that they are failing THIS individual now and need to deal with it

“On a wider level the GSD has been calling for reform of this area for a long time. This is not a party-political point because the basis of the current Housing system has been in place for decades. The GSD had clear manifesto commitments at the last election.

“The TG press release on the Housing system implying the GSD were the “creators” of the broken housing system displays a terrible historical ignorance on how the system came about in their rush to taint other parties.

“In fact the bulk of the rules and Housing Scheme still being applied now were put in place by the IWBP led Government and then modified by Sir Joshua Hassan’s AACR in the 1970s. They were appropriate and adequate at the time and served its purpose for this community. The GSD certainly didn’t create the housing rules as we did not even exist as a Party at the time.

“Fifty years on however the Housing Scheme needs radical overhaul as we committed ourselves to in our last manifesto. It needs now to respond to the needs of 21st Century Gibraltar. We have undertaken to entirely review the system put in place by the IWBP and AACR which TG unfairly appears to think was “rotten to the core.” We disagree it was but it now needs radical reform.”