Jul 15 - Government Says GSD “Overspent By £158m” And Had “No Budget Discipline”
The Government has said that the most recent in a series of post-Budget advertisements placed by the GSD in the Gibraltar Chronicle demonstrates that Mr Feetham “has not listened or had regard to any of the information provided to him in Parliament.”
In fact, says the Government, the GSLP/Liberal administration “has controlled departmental expenditure much better than the GSD was able to do in all its years in office.”
The Government says that, in a actual fact, Departmental expenditure has been exceeded only by 4%.
All other excesses of expenditure relate, it says, to items which are “out of the control of Government” and where costs are driven by market or other external forces.
A statement from Number 6 offers the following explanations: “The highest relevant cost is that related to the price of diesel (now cost approximately £56m a year). Also relevant is the huge increase in tuition fees which has resulted in the amounts budgeted for Scholarships having more than doubled from £6.4m to close to £15m.
“Ironically, the GSD now issues adverts complaining about this overspending, but they were much worse at controlling costs. Mr Feetham himself presided over huge overspends of almost £10m on projects he was in charge of at the prison and the courts. The new airport represents an over spend of £60m on the original quote of £24m. Indeed, the GSD government overspent by £158m in its time in office.
“In any event, any suggestion that the GSD left behind any useable cash has now been entirely quashed by the Hon Sir Peter Caruana's recognition that under the GSD the level of debt was reaching the ceiling fixed in law. This is a complete vindication of the GSLP/Liberal's position at the election and of the Treasury's figures that demonstrated only £2.5m was left at the end of the GSD's last financial year in office. Mr Feetham, however, seems not to have appreciated the meaning and import of the words of the man he once described as "the greatest Gibraltarian politician of all time." Indeed, Mr Feetham is running a campaign that ignores all the data and information provided to him during the Budget debate. He has clearly thought up his mendacious adverts before the debate and isn't going to let facts get in the way of his desire negative spin!”
