May 05 - GSD Concerned That Credit Finance Has “Failed To File Accounts”
The GSD has said that it is concerned that Credit Finance Company Limited, a Government company which it claims is spending £400 million of monies invested in the Gibraltar Savings Bank locally by savers, and which the GSD says is being used to hide half of the public debt, has yet to file its accounts with Companies House and has failed to do so as required by law. The GSD says that Credit Finance Company Limited was incorporated on 17th February 2012, so the law requires that accounts should have been filed, at the latest, by 16th August 2014. The Opposition stresses that this “raises very serious good governance issues.”
A statement released this afternoon expands on these concerns:
“Despite the failure by Credit Finance to file accounts, in his opinion piece published in the Chronicle yesterday, the Chief Minister continues to rely on irrelevant red herrings to distract from the real issues that the Opposition are raising about Public Finances. The Chief Minister does not answer any of the fundamental questions either about the use of Credit Finance in order to circumvent legal borrowing limits or questions that would allow the Opposition to assess the risk associated with Credit Finance and any emerging financial problems before they become too big to deal with.
“All that has been revealed is that £355 million has been lent by Credit Finance to Gibraltar Investment (Holdings) Limited a government owned company in order to fund the cash flow requirements of all Government owned companies but not which companies, in what amounts and how it is to be repaid. £50 million has been loaned to third parties the identities and the terms of which the Government refuses to disclose and £25 million has funded the commuted pensions of Civil Servants. What security is there for the repayment of this money? What risk is faced in relation to each of these loans? Where is the transparency promised in the GSLP/Liberal manifesto? If the use of this money is safe why the reticence to be transparent as promised?
“It is not true to say that the GSD Government did the same thing. None of this was permitted by the Gibraltar Savings Bank Act until the GSLP/Liberal Government conveniently changed the law in 2012.
“The Principal Auditor does not currently audit any of the companies owned by the Government. Consequently, the Chief Minister’s reliance on the Principal Auditor as justification of the Government’s actions is irrelevant.
“It is also not an excuse for the GSLP/Liberal Government to say that questions in Parliament are not asked accurately enough to merit the transparency that the GSLP/Liberal Government promised in their manifesto. The GSLP/Liberal Government is simply breaking its promise of transparency; any reason given for this breach, however plausible or implausible, is irrelevant. Democracy demands more than what the GSLP/Liberal Government is giving.”
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