New Year Message by Keith Azopardi, Leader of the Opposition

As we look forward to 2025 we need to reflect on recent events.

At the start of last year we had just emerged from the closest election ever in which we had campaigned on big issues affecting our financial and democratic governance.

We had said to you that there was a public finances crisis that needed fixing. That there needed to be an end to waste, abuse and corruption and that systems of control had to be overhauled. Things had to be done differently because the GSLP/Libs were simply unable or unwilling to tackle those issues.

They had shown that over many years. Plunging Gibraltar into unprecedented debt, using a jungle of opaque companies, uncontrolled spending and directionless financial decisions devoid of value for money. All that affects you and affects your families. It affects the money in your pocket and the services you enjoy. So when you do not have wage rises it is because there’s not enough money or because of decisions which are of questionable value for money.
You want your children to have the best opportunities. But when doors open for some and not for all – that’s not fairness. You want to be able to compete in business on the same terms. But when projects are awarded without tender or behind closed doors or to people close to the Government Party – that’s not opportunity for all. Access to jobs or lucrative contracts cannot be based on who you are, who you know or who your political friends are.

I know that a lot of what we said at the last election resonated with many of you and still does. I know it may have resonated with some of you even though you voted for the GSLP/Libs for other reasons. Thinking things would improve. But those issues have not gone away.

And 2024 emphasised that the situation was worse than we thought and we were justified in those criticisms.

Last year the Principal Auditor finally published historic audits up to 2018. They showed a catalogue of concerns on waste and abuse. Multi-million pound contracts awarded deficiently or intransparently. Excessive overtime, lack of financial controls, questionable Ministerial decisions or deep failures in supervision of contracts. Those audits had been shamelessly obstructed by the GSLP/Libs with the consequence that they did not emerge before the last election. You would have been rightly shocked at those financial issues if you had seen them at election time. The Government has continued to slow down the work of Auditors delaying other reports which have still not been published. This time lag is unacceptable and an obstacle to real scrutiny and accountability. But our only conclusion is that this is something the GSLP prefer.

The issues raised by the Principal Auditor can only be resolved by radical reform of financial governance, better accountability, controls and transparency. But this is a Government that when awarding a major contract to one of its election agents says there was no conflict of interest. This is a Government whose Chief Minister had a beneficial interest in a company vying for a major public contract at the heart of the McGrail Inquiry. When those things are happening it is because the GSLP have lost their way and are at the point of no return. Nothing will save them now. Whether new Ministers or new Leaders. Because they have had 14 years to show you something different and instead they default to the way they always do things – opaquely and with no real desire to address the major financial governance issues.

No amount of incessant photo opportunities will whitewash the fact that when the crunch comes all Ministers rally around the excesses, the lack of transparency or the downright lies.

2024 also brought you the McGrail Inquiry hearings which became compulsive watching for many. People will have been rightly scandalised at some of the evidence that pulled back a curtain on practices and conflicts that sounded so incredible that it was hard to comprehend. It provided just a glimmer into the attitude of this Government. It caused many people to wonder whether it was the tip of the iceberg. We imagine that 2025 will be the year when the Inquiry Chairman will deliver his Report. We will comment further on the Inquiry, its conclusions and governance issues that arise beyond the scope of the Inquiry when that happens.
Perhaps not strangely the Chief Minister said nothing at all about the Inquiry in his new year message despite this dominating headlines for several months. I suppose he takes the view that some facts and experiences are best politically buried.

We will continue to provide inconvenient truths that shine a light on this Government’s reality. To provide that robust, uncomfortable, critical Opposition Gibraltar needs.

So we will expose directionless decisions like the ill-thought through car levy last July affecting those on lowest income disproportionately or bad financial deals like the £22M rental deal over a property that used to belong to the Government. Because bad decisions affect you.

We will also remind them of their promises and their failures. So when Mr Picardo says he expects that a new housing project will be built by 2028 (in three years) in a plot that is only currently sea water we will be forgiven for greeting that with scepticism. Many hundreds of families are still waiting for the houses promised in 2015 – ten years ago. They remain disappointed at the huge delays. It will be galling for people still enduring the failures of delivery of the GSLP 2015 election promise on Bob Peliza Mews or the 2017 promise on Chatham Views to hear further hubris on housing. The reality is that as we go into 2025 the GSLP are still building the houses they promised in 2015. Some people may not get those till 2027. By then children will be older and the needs of many families will have changed.

This new land reclamation also raises big planning, environmental or financial questions and issues of opportunity, value for money or transparency. If the Government was intending to do a reclamation in joint-venture with the private sector why not put this out to tender? What are the financial arrangements that underpin these Heads of Terms and why haven’t they been made public?

The Chief Minister says he is now “really close” to a Brexit deal. It’s nine years after the Brexit referendum and four years after Britain concluded its own permanent agreement. More importantly it’s 16 months from when ahead of the last general election Mr Picardo promised you he was only 0.01% away from a deal. I think we all know now that this can only have been an electoral lie.

Let’s be clear. We aren’t complaining about the delay. What we are saying is that in September 2023 Mr Picardo simply did not tell you the truth of how far away he was from a deal when he asked you to vote for him.

If a deal does emerge this year we will then assess whether it is safe and beneficial. We are clear that if it is possible to achieve one it is in Gibraltar’s interests to have a safe and beneficial permanent Treaty with the EU.

On all those issues we will continue working hard for you. Bringing forward the concerns that matter. Exposing bad decisions or ones that fail to deliver accountability, opportunity or value for money.

Because we take our solemn duty seriously; however hard it is and however much a Government with far greater resources tries to squash or bully its critics. We do so to improve the way things are done and decided. To create a better Gibraltar; with better systems of control and with better services and opportunities. A Gibraltar where there is a bright future full of hope and promise. We believe in such a future.

On behalf of my colleagues, our families and myself I wish you a happy, peaceful and successful 2025.