Dismissing claims by the Chief Minister that the Opposition ignored warnings ‘about the need to upgrade the electricity distribution system following the 2005 report’ whilst in Government, the GSD has insisted that Gibraltar would have a New Power Station and distribution system, had the GSLP/ Liberal Government not scrapped the contract.

The party claims that the reason the contract was not given the go ahead was because the project was embroiled in litigation and injunctions, causing the works to be prevented from commencing until 2011.

Commenting on the matter, GSD spokesperson Jaime Netto noted, ‘The fact is that [the Government] have decided to start from scratch and the situation is deteriorating all the time with monthly (sometimes weekly) power cuts. If the situation was so perilous why has the Government not got beyond the study phase yet? For example we do not appear to have a final decision on where the Liquid Natural Gas installation is going to be built or how LNG is going to be supplied to the Power Station.’