Jan 15 - Feetham’s New Year Speech Touches Upon GSB Investments and Fishing Dispute
Yesterday evening, Opposition leader Daniel Feetham’s New Year’s Message was broadcast on GBC television. The speech touched upon the fishing dispute as well as employment and education.
The speech, in its entirety, is as follows:
‘I hope you have all had a restful and enjoyable Christmas and New Year with your family and loved ones. Tonight I want to talk to you about some of the issues that I believe will be of vital importance to this community over the next few years.
‘You may recall that in March of 2012, without making any announcement, either in Parliament or outside it, the Government formed a company called Credit Finance Company Limited. The GSB then invested £344 million of savers’ and taxpayers’ money into that company.
‘This amount represents just over a third of the size of the economy. Imagine what would have happened in the United Kingdom if Ministers had decided to form a Government company and pour such huge sums of money into it without telling their taxpayers or Parliament about it. There would have been a national outcry.
‘Under the administration of this so called New Dawn Government, the only reason why we found out about this was because a concerned member of the public, who had intimate knowledge of these matters, told us that the Chief Minister had lied to me in Parliament when he had said that the Government had not directly or indirectly provided any financial assistance to the owners of the Sunborn when a £30 million loan had in fact been made.
‘Even in the last week of the By-Election, Mr. Picardo sought to maintain the charade that no loans had been provided only to come clean the day after the By-Election justifying months of misleading of Parliament and the public with the argument that the Government provided no direct or indirect financial assistance because it was a Government owned company and not the Government itself that provided the loan.
‘This was an extraordinary statement for a Chief Minister to make bearing in mind that the Government of Gibraltar guarantees all the monies in the GSB and that the Financial Secretary, the Chief Secretary and another Senior Civil Servant are all directors of Credit Finance Company. In any other jurisdiction, there would have been a near universal call for Mr. Picardo’s resignation for such a blatant misrepresentation of the facts.
‘But the blatant misleading of Parliament and the people, serious as it is, is not even our main concern. Over the last two years the Government have been reducing public debt, by effectively converting Government debentures, which is a debt of the Government, to GSB debentures, which is a debt of the Bank. It is then using that money, through Credit Finance Company, to fund its hugely expensive manifesto commitments, and provide loans to third parties without having to account to Parliament because the accounts of Credit Finance Company are outside the estimates of revenue and expenditure presented to Parliament for approval every year at Budget time.
‘The Government is using Credit Finance Company as a credit card without accounting to Parliament or to you, the taxpayer for it. To boot, the Government refuses to answer questions in Parliament as to how the money is being spent. It is nonsensical to compare Credit Finance Company to a bank and say the loan books of a bank are subject to commercial confidentiality.
‘Banks are independently regulated by the FSC and have boards independent of any Government, even if one which is also a shareholder. This is a Government owned company run by senior civil servants. It is simply a return to the days when the public finances of this community were structured through an impenetrable web of companies.
‘And what we are all paying is the price of the Alliance’s completely contradictory political arguments at the last election. On the one hand claiming public debt was far too high and that our public finances were in a ruinous state then promising everything to everyone. They promised to cut public debt in half, reduce income tax, freeze rents rates and electricity whilst at the same time promising over £750 million in capital projects. To pay for all this without increasing public debt, the Government is using savers money deposited in the GSB without being constrained by the legal borrowing limits which are in place to ensure Governments do not borrow in a manner that becomes unaffordable.
‘Another Opposition discovery, once again, BY CHANCE, were the companies registered at no6 Convent Place and the Ministry of Employment with civil servants as directors and with the benefit of contracts by direct allocation. Some of these companies are owned by well-known GSLP supporters. It was only after the Government was rumbled that they came out with the excuse that this was an incubator scheme. For a Government that delights in ticking off minor manifesto commitments it is disgraceful that they sought to maintain this scheme secret.
‘On the employment and education front, we believe that the current FJS structure is an ill-thought out policy. We are painfully aware of all those who were promised guaranteed jobs at the last election and today sit at home waiting for a phone call or those parked in dead end placements. Gibraltar deserves more. Gibraltarians deserve a cohesive and viable plan for long-term education and training, not a haphazard election promise which predictably has not materialised. That is precisely what we are going to be providing you with over the next six months.
‘In terms of relations with Spain, not since the closure of the border have those relations been at a lower point. It is completely wrong for the Spanish Government to have targeted an entire community as it has done with Gibraltar – whatever sleight it perceives to have received. Spain’s reaction has been disproportionate, immoral and in relation to the border queues, illegal too. As an Opposition we have condemned those measures over the last three months and I take this opportunity to condemn them again today.
‘But in a democracy not everyone will agree with the approach of the Government of the day. The GSLP-Liberals when they were in Opposition criticized the Cordoba Agreements. No one sought to equate those criticisms of GSD Government policy with criticisms of, or disloyalty to Gibraltar.
‘Was it necessary to tear up the 1999 agreement on Facebook only to legislate to allow those same fishermen to fish with nets two years later? What has been achieved? And the Government still does not come clean on whether Spanish Fishermen will have to apply for a Fishing License in Gibraltar. Acting earlier may or may not have staved off much of what has transpired since then but I am convinced that the delay has certainly made things much worse.
‘Indeed, with respect to Mr. Picardo every time he acts or opens his mouth on these issues, I sense a collective holding of nervous breath amongst reasonable people who understand that it is not in OUR NATIONAL interest to inflame an already inflammable situation or play into the hands of the PP Government.
‘My concern is also that because of some of his statements and his handling of these issues, this crisis has been aggravated and it has, to some extent, become personalized and focused on Mr Picardo. That is not good for Gibraltar. Every Chief Minister has to be an effective interlocutor in dealings with Spain and that is what he is increasingly incapable of being.
‘Finally I want to assure you that the GSD Opposition is here to ensure that your Government is accountable to you. We will not stop asking questions in parliament on your behalf to hold them to account for the good of our community.
On behalf of the GSD I wish you and your families all the very best for 2014.’
