May 14 - Feetham “Demonstrates Hypocrisy And Duplicity Of His Position On LNG Power Station” Says Government
The Government has said that the Leader of the Opposition “has once again revealed the hypocrisy and lack of substance of his position” on the planned LNG Power Station.
A statement released this afternoon by Number Six continues:
“In a GBC television programme in which he has copied the Chief Minister's Direct Democracy format, on Tuesday, he stated that he would reverse the power station project only if it had not progressed significantly. That logically means that he will build it if under way, even though in the same breath he now says he believes LNG to be even more dangerous than he had thought.
“As a result, so long as the work on the LNG power station is progressing irrevocably or the contracts have been irrevocably executed, the issue of the allegedly unsafe use of LNG would not be an issue for Mr Feetham because he will progress with the plans however risky.
“This view is nonsensical in the extreme and is so plainly illogical that it surely demonstrates that the GSD and Mr Feetham have no real concerns about LNG and are just opportunistically making issues up and trying to scare members of the public who might take their statements at face value.
“This statement also demonstrates the little value to be ascribed to the things Mr Feetham says, given he had previously said categorically that he would not let Gibraltar take part in LNG bunkering because of the dangers he says are occasioned from storage, despite now committing to complete said facilities so long as they have started before the election!
“The logical contradictions in Mr Feetham's arguments are so rife as to have almost become unremarkable!
“The fact is that Mr Feetham as demonstrated once again that he has no idea about LNG technology, and is now going to pay experts to try and substantiate his hollow arguments.
“Indeed, in this respect also, he is about to try to seriously mislead the community yet again. He stated that he will be publishing the GSD report on LNG shortly. Any expert's report on LNG and LNG bunkering prepared by the Opposition at this stage will be of very little value. It will be based purely on conjecture, as details of the proposals are not yet known and are still awaited. Any report will therefore be only speculative, and contain many assumptions, most of which will be incorrect. This will expose his experts to severe, and potentially damaging questioning.
“The Government has already clearly explained that its assessments are generic. They point out what should not be done and what can be done, but safety assessments are site and technology specific. The design details for the dual fired power station are being developed as part of the design and build contract and the LNG storage proposal needs to remain confidential until the best proposal is selected and the contract awarded. It is these firm proposals that will be assessed to guarantee safety. Government is committed to publish this information once it is available.”
Minister Dr John Cortes, said: "Her Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar cares about the Community like no other and would clearly never contemplate anything that would bring it any material danger or that might bankrupt it, despite the repeated scaremongering from Mr Feetham. His statements on television in his direct democracy programme were proof positive of the fact he is clearly convinced LNG is safe but that he is trying to just scare people by publishing incendiary photographs. People are seeing through Mr Feetham's approach."
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