Bossino accuses Government of ‘vicious’ bid to discredit auditor after ‘damning’ report 

GSD MP Damon Bossino accused the Gibraltar Government of mounting a “vicious collective lashing out” against the former Principal Auditor and using Parliament to distract from what he described as the “damning nature” of the 2018/19 report on public finances. 

Speaking on Monday evening in the debate on the Government’s motion on the report, Mr Bossino said lengthy legal and political arguments from ministers were designed to obscure its findings rather than address them. 

“Length and legal arguments are there to serve a purpose,” he said  

“A purpose not just to confuse, but also to unnecessarily prolong this time-wasting debate…so that people forget the damning nature of this report.” 

He argued that the public had already formed their own view of the audit report and the Government’s handling of public finances.  

“The horse bolted the moment that the report was issued,” he told Parliament, adding that people had reached “certain, and I would say damning, conclusions of this Government.” 

Mr Bossino described the motion as “a trap” and said the debate should be focused on the report’s key points, not “the rabbit hole” created by the Chief Minister in his intervention. 

He said there were “two broad core issues” raised by the row over the report. 

“The first one is that the Chief Minister and his Government are fast, very fast, losing the little political capital which they had left,” he told Parliament. 

He claimed this was being worsened by “an internecine battle for the leadership, which runs the risk of destroying them”, adding that while this was happening “they have been dealt a very serious blow indeed by an independent constitutional office holder.” 

Mr Bossino accused the Government of responding to that blow by turning on the former Principal Auditor rather than accepting scrutiny. 

“Clearly, what they have done is resort to an inelegant, unjust, unjustified and vicious collective lashing out to destroy him personally as well as his report,” he said.  

He singled out the intervention of the Minister for Economic Development, Sir Joe Bossano, as an example of that approach, describing it as “inelegant in many respects”. 

Mr Bossino criticised Sir Joe for repeatedly suggesting bias on the part of the former Principal Auditor “in favour of the GSD and the targeting of the GSLP”, describing that as “shocking” and “quite infantile, quite frankly”. 

The GSD MP said he “expected a lot more” from Sir Joe given his long experience in Parliament. 

Mr Bossino argued that the dispute over the report highlighted what he described as a long-standing culture of secrecy in Government. 

The Government, he said, “despite the false protestations to the contrary, is secretive”. 

Referring to Mr Picardo’s intervention, Mr Bossino claimed the Chief Minister had effectively admitted he did not want to empower independent oversight, particularly on value for money work. 

He referred to comments from the Chief Minister suggesting legislation might be needed if the Principal Auditor continued to act in a certain way on value-for-money reviews. 

“He doesn't want to give somebody, a constitutional office holder, the power to start shining lights over what he does,” Mr Bossino said. 

“He let the cat out for the bag. That is his DNA. That is the way he thinks. That is his approach to government and to politics.” 

Mr Bossino told Parliament that, in his view, the Government’s resistance to scrutiny extended beyond its clash with the former auditor and was also evident in the way ministers handled parliamentary questions. 

“We try our best, as an Opposition, to ask questions, to hold them to account,” he said. 

“But we are limited by the rules of the House, by the number of supplementaries we can ask and by the way that they answer questions and they lead us down the garden path.” 

By contrast, he said, the Principal Auditor had in his report been able to “shine that bright light on the things that many people are talking about out there”. 

Mr Bossino said the Government’s motion and the tone of ministerial contributions over the course of the debate demonstrated an administration more concerned with defending itself and attacking an independent officer than with addressing the concerns raised in the 2018/19 report.