“It Is TG’s Duty To Call Out What It Perceives To Be Improper Behaviour” Says Together Gibraltar
Together Gibraltar has stated that it is “perfectly reasonable” for the Party to call out “the occurrence and raise the issue publicly.”
A statement from Together Gibraltar follows below:
On a statement made yesterday, TG exposed that, in a tweet by law firm “Hassans” Gemma Vasquez (member of the GSLP executive) and Justine Picardo (wife of the Chief Minister, both partners of the firm “Hassans”), were cited as advisors of the TNG group on the 330m Eastside deal with Fabian Picardo’s (partner of Hassans) Government. In defence of the deal, Mrs. Picardo and Mrs. Vasquez have said in their PR that the firm's tweet was amended and re-issued for reasons related to “marketing strategy and nothing else”, and is a matter for its communications team.
The firm goes to great lengths to state that Mrs. Vasquez and Mrs. Picardo were part of the team, but were never “involved in any negotiation with the Government for the TNG Foundation.” This amounts to an admission that, had Mrs. Picardo and Mrs. Vasquez advised the TNG group as the tweet stated, then that behaviour would have been improper.
It is therefore perfectly reasonable for TG to call out the occurrence and raise the issue publicly. TG would like to remind Mr Levy, Mrs Picardo and Mrs Vasquez, that it is the party’s job to expose issues of corruption, actual or perceived, that it may come across in the fulfilment of its duties.
The party would also like to ask the firm why they did not clarify publicly at the time that the change in the content of the tweet was due to a change in marketing strategy, when there are so many precedents of misfired tweets revealing corruption and wrongdoing.
TG leader, MHN said: “Erasing and editing a tweet in this way is an extremely suspicious marketing move. Had this happened with a GSD or a TG Government, I’m sure the GSLP would have been the first to call it out.”
