Jun 29 – Government Says Lloyd’s Register Statement Changes Everything
The Government believes the Lloyd’s Register report was based on false information provided by the Spark Group of Companies and the GSD, and that the Leader of the Opposition’s deception of the people of Gibraltarian is unprecedented.
Lloyd’s Register has also acknowledged that the mitigation measures adopted by Government ‘could see major risks entirely reduced’.
In a statement released today, the Government of Gibraltar said in light of the statement released by Lloyd’s Register and read out in Parliament, the Government considers it necessary to reassure the public that all necessary and appropriate measures are being taken to investigate the circumstances under which this report was produced.
The report has since been discredited by the authors themselves on the grounds that it was only ever intended to serve as a preliminary ‘evaluation study’ that, in any case, has been revealed to have been based on totally false assumptions of the Government’s plans.
The Government greatly regrets the manner in which Lloyd’s Register have, through no fault of their own and with no question of their reputation for professionalism and impartiality, become unwittingly and unwillingly embroiled in the joint enterprise of Spark and the Leader of the Opposition to de-rail the Government’s actual plans and prejudice the public irrationally against LNG for no other purpose than to serve their own commercial and political agendas.
The version of the Lloyd’s Register Quantitative Risk Assessment report published by the GSD on 10th June 2015, states on p. ii that: ‘Should the design differ from that assumed [based on assumptions provided to Lloyd’s Register by Spark and the GSD], then the results would change.’ The Government takes this opportunity to clarify that, since the assumptions made by the Lloyd’s Register report are totally false and differ so greatly to the proposals being assessed by the Government-commissioned experts, the risks identified by the report can be eliminated if the criteria of the UK Health and Safety Executive are applied. This is exactly what is being done.
Lloyd’s Register’s statement clearly and categorically states that ‘modifications to the technical requirements and repositioning of the tanks [based on the information supplied to Lloyd’s Register by Spark and the GSD] could see major risks entirely reduced’. If risks are entirely reduced then there is no risk of a particular event occurring. Therefore, by GSD Chairman Trevor Hammond’s own logic applied during his deceptive presentation of the Lloyd’s Register report, there can be no consequence of that event simply because that event will never happen.
When talking about risks and health and safety the Leader of the Opposition would do better by seeing past his blind rejection of LNG to the bigger picture of what is right and necessary for Gibraltar. Indeed, Lloyd’s Register’s statement clearly reveals that ‘the benefits of improved air quality [as a result of the use of LNG over diesel] was not considered’ as this was not included in the instructions provided to the company.
What the omission of such an important factor does is prove that the purpose of the commissioning of the report was not a genuine investigation into what would be the right thing for the community. It confirms that, instead, the report was intended to serve the commercial and political interests of the Spark-GSD joint enterprise.
The Chief Minister, the Hon Fabian Picardo QC said: ‘The credibility of the Lloyd’s Register report was sabotaged from the beginning by the very people who commissioned it: the report’s conclusions had been pre-determined by the GSD and Spark from the very second that they provided Lloyd’s Register with false plans.
“The statement released by Lloyd’s Register on Wednesday changes everything about the Leader of the Opposition’s argument against LNG: his hyperbole and deceptions have been exposed for what they are, and the report, the argument presented by the GSD and the Leader of the Opposition himself, have lost all credibility. The new Lloyd's statement changes everything and the discredited Daniel Feetham can't change that!”
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