Sir Joe brands Clinton a 'chronic conspiracy theorist' in budget address 

Sir Joe Bossano, the Minister for Economic Development and the Savings Bank, lambasted Opposition MP Roy Clinton for questioning his political integrity and honesty in an article he wrote earlier this year. 

During a budget address, Sir Joe said Mr Clinton had misinterpreted answers he had provided in Parliament about Community Credit Union Limited, an entity that has provided loans ultimately backed by the Gibraltar Savings Bank. 

Mr Clinton has questioned the transparency of the company’s activities and the rationale for the loans. 

“He suggests that I am biased in the decision-making process, depending on who is involved,” Sir Joe said. 

“No other person other than him has ever said that of me, to date.” 

“Let me make it absolutely clear, if a proposal for funding failed to pass the technical assessment, then that is the end of the story.” 

“If the recommendation is favourable, then it comes to me for approval and I review the numbers and if I am not satisfied that it is safe, I don’t approve.” 

“In all the proposals that have been submitted to date only one was turned down, which coincidentally happened to be put by someone that is my friend.” 

“This is what I need to do because many people tell me that they buy debentures because I am there and they trust me and above all I owe it to them, to those people to make sure that the funding is safe.” 

Sir Joe said Mr Clinton’s article also included a number of false statements, including relating to the lack of advertising for the scheme. 

Sir Joe said “there is no question about the scheme not being known”. 

“It has been going on since 2023 when I informed all the stakeholders - that is, persons with savings bank debentures or accounts - that the savings bank was creating the Economic Development Debentures, and that there was a special email site for comments from users of the Savings Bank, which could be addressed to me, and I would clear up any problems or answer any queries.” 

“No negative response was received from the customers of the Savings Bank.”  

“So the purchasers were aware that the debentures could be used to provide funding benefiting the economy.” 

“Creating the impression of something new being discovered a few months ago is deliberately misleading.” 

“Indeed, it is more than that. It is a complete lie [and] is the very opposite of the explanation that I provided in Parliament.” 

On the lending activities of Community Credit Union Limited, Sir Joe said that if the activity was funded by loan notes purchased by the Savings Bank, that could only happen because a business case had been vetted and approved. 

Sir Joe said the bank’s Economic Development Debentures created a pool of money that could be reinvested locally in projects to support Gibraltar’s economy. 

That, in turn, enabled the bank to pay higher interest to depositors while funding assets that generated economic activity and increased government revenue, helping to pay for public services. 

But while the Government knows where the money is going, it is not free to publish that information, Parliament was told. 

Sir Joe said the Savings Bank had “an excellent result” this year and was increasing its support to the Gibraltar business community to help the economy grow. 

In June, the bank reached a new high in non-Government deposits, with Economic Development Debentures reaching £499.99m.  

The other GSB debentures had reached £919m. 

He said 10-year debentures at 5% were not linked to market rates and the bank “continued paying our pensioners the 5% return even when the UK bank rate was as low as 0.75% in 2022, providing a secure, reliable income to our pensioners.” 

Sir Joe told Parliament that Mr Clinton had misrepresented his answer in Parliament “to attack my honesty and integrity” in relation to his responsibility for the Savings Bank. 

He said the two periods during which he was responsible for the bank had been the periods of “greatest growth and service to savers, greater than in than any other period before or after”. 

“Is this me boasting? No, this is me reminding members of the facts. The numbers speak for themselves,” he said. 

“[Mr Clinton] may not understand why I work seven days a week. It’s because I want to, not because I have to.” 

“I see anyone with a problem that comes on a weekend on a Saturday or a Sunday without caring who they vote for or even whether they can vote because even the nationality doesn’t matter to me.” 

“He accused me of doing the very opposite of what I’ve been doing in the 54 years as a member [of Parliament] and have done whether I’ve been in government or in Opposition.” 

Sir Joe said helping people gave him satisfaction that he did not get from doing anything else.  

“If he knew that about me, he would know that to accuse me of approving loans for my friends and excluding others is to trash everything I believe in and the values by which I have lived all my life,” he said. 

“To suggest that this is what I’m up to, based on the answers I’ve given him in Parliament, is adding insult to injury.” 

Sir Joe said his conclusion was that Mr Clinton was “a chronic conspiracy theorist”. 

“If something is done in a way different from the way he would do it, then something sinister must be behind it,” he said. 

RESIDENCY 

Elsewhere in his budget address, Sir Joe defended the new residency rules including the salary threshold for new entrants. 

“The £37,500 salary requirement for new residency for persons of any nationality who want to reside and work in Gibraltar will have a beneficial impact on the economy, contrary to what Mr Azopardi and presumably the Opposition party believe,” Sir Joe said. 

“The UK has a similar, but higher, threshold for work and residence permits into the UK. So do other countries.” 

“In Gibraltar, there will be exceptions to the thresholds allowed in specific cases where there is a need.” 

“Increasing our population with new people on low wages, which is what Mr Azopardi advocates, reduces the average tax yield and increases the pressure on public services.” 

“This is detrimental to economic development and the delivery of public services which would initially be reduced in quality temporarily until increased public funding was invested in increasing the supply of the services at a cost to the existing population of taxpayers.” 

“The analysis of how average earnings have been rising in recent years shows that the growth of the economy is accompanied by ever higher average earnings generated by higher productivity and is clear evidence of the need for the salary threshold.” 

Sir Joe said Gibraltar faced the same challenge as other advanced economies, with people living longer, birth rates falling and the share of pensioners rising, creating pressure on public spending and a shrinking working-age population.  

He said Gibraltar would need to plan carefully for that shift, while maintaining economic output and ensuring it could support an ageing population over the long term. 

Gibraltar’s future economic planning would be shaped by the use of Artificial Intelligence in both the public and private sectors, arguing that higher labour productivity was the key to creating wealth, improving prosperity and raising living standards, he told Parliament.