Jan 22 - No.6 Rejects Feetham's New Year Claims
In response to the Opposition’s New Year Message the Government has rejected a number of Mr. Feetham’s points regarding a number of issues including Credit Finance Company Limited, how Government is spending money, their ‘blatant misleading of Parliament and the public’ and relations with Spain.
Hitting out at Feetham’s insistence that there was no announcement in or outside Parliament of the formation of Credit Finance Company Limited, No.6 has stated that the company was shown in the chart of Government companies presented in the approved estimates of revenue and expenditure for 2012/2013. In response to the GSD’s claims that the Government is using CFCL to fund manifesto commitments and provide loans No.6 claimed that the GSD too funded capital expenditure through Government owned companies, when it was not approved by Parliament.
A No.6 statement went on to reject the Opposition’s suggestion that the Government refuses to answer questions in Parliament on how money is being spent. The statement notes, ‘the Government have in fact answered in Parliament exactly how the money is being spent. This has included supplying the Opposition with a breakdown of the amounts in question and giving them additional information requested by them. For example, at the last meeting of the House questions 842, 843, 844 and 845 on Credit Finance were all answered. The only information that Government will not give is as to identify of borrowers, loans etc – exactly the information all lenders would consider to be confidential.’
Feetham’s claim that the Government has returned to the days ‘when public finances were structured through an impenetrable web of companies.’ The Government believes that the ‘so-called web of companies’ were in existence throughout the GSD’s 15 year term in office. ‘It is clear, as shown above, that the Government company structure continued to be used by Mr Feetham throughout his time in office. Indeed, the GSD actually added to the number of Government-owned companies by creating new ones and they channeled tens of millions of pounds through this system.’
On the statement that the Government is misleading parliament and the people, they have insisted that it is the GSD that is repeatedly seeking to mislead, and did so throughout their tenure in office.
Regarding relations with Spain, No.6 has rejected the statements that the relationship between Gibraltar and Spain have not been this bad since the closure of the frontier. They says that relations tend to worsen when the Partido Popular are voted into power and wish to distract public opinion away from other central issues. On the GSD’s alleged criticism of Cordoba No.6 has stated that when the GSLP/Liberals were in Opposition they continually had to remind the GSD of this as the party argued that there could be no cherry picking in relation to the different parts of Cordoba. ‘Today the Partido Popular have themselves “cherry picked” and kept the Spanish pensions money, increased the tension at the frontier, objected to the inclusion of Gibraltar in EU civil aviation measures, and not kept their side of the bargain.’
On the Chief Minister’s relationship with Spain, Mr. Feetham claimed that Mr. Picardo is not an effective interlocutor in relations with Spain. In response, the Government said, ‘Mr Picardo has shown that he is an effective interlocutor in relations with other Spanish political parties, including the main Spanish Opposition PSOE at a local and at a national level. The problem therefore is not Spain as such, the problem is the Partido Popular.’ They go on to touch upon Mr. Caruana’s accusation that former Spanish Foreign Minister Abel Matutes was telling ‘mendacious lies’.
