In line with the commitments contained in the GSLP/LIB manifesto, the Minister for Employment and Pensions, Joe Bossano, yesterday announced the introduction of a new Guaranteed Superannuation Fund-Pension Scheme which will be available for workers in both the public and private sectors. Those currently in other schemes, such as the Provident Fund, will be able to remain in that scheme and enjoy the benefits announced by the previous Government although they may opt for the new scheme if they so wish to, new-entrants into the Civil Service will all join the new scheme which is an improvement to what they would have got with the current scheme.

Government will double the contribution made by the employee which is capped at 8% of salary. This means that a person contributing 8% of his salary will have a contribution of 25%. Employers in the Private Sector, however, are not expected to make this level of contribution; they may decide a completely different formula with their employees and still join the scheme. Private Sector employees, on their own, may join the scheme as can self-employed people. The scheme is flexible in the contributions on a year-by-year basis. Employees can decide one year to contribute 8%, the next year decrease the contribution to 2% because of some financial commitments and then the following year increase the contribution again.

The Government has said that all funds of this new pension scheme will be invested in the Gibraltar Savings Bank and will therefore be fully guaranteed by the Government, something that the GSD Opposition appear to object to. The scheme will be administered by the Treasury Department and administration and investment management charges will be nominal.

Joe Bossano was asked by GBC whether it was the intention of the Government to legislate to make pension schemes compulsory in the Private Sector. He said that this is not the intention of the Government, it is making available a scheme for those employers and employees who agree, through union negotiations or by mutual consent, to introduce a pension scheme. He did say, however, that there is a possibility that the European Union should make it obligatory for private companies to have pension schemes, adding that if this happened the new scheme would be available to all companies and their employees.

The Minister also announced that commutation of up to 100% of final salary pension schemes, which until now has only been available to defined contribution pension schemes, will be extended to all approved final-salary pension schemes in Gibraltar.

OCEAN VILLAGE SELL-OUT

The GSD sold out premiums and fees worth millions to the people of Gibraltar to the owners of Ocean Village in exchange for a strip of sea which they had sold to them in 2007 for a mere £267,000. Following an investigation by the new Government it is estimated that the lost revenue to the people of Gibraltar of this done deal will be in the region of £4 million. This is how Peter Caruana and the GSD looked after your money, by practically giving it away in their desperate bid to be able to provide an area for berths for small boats after fifteen years of broken promises. Worse still is that they did this nine days before the general elections, when they were in Government in a caretaker capacity and had no authority to do so, no mandate and no executive power. This is why the GSLP/LIB Government must now check meticulously what the legal position of those commitments is. How can something that was worth £267,000 in 2007 be worth £4 million when you buy it back four years later?

The new Government says it has no doubts that this deal was rushed through for electoral reasons in order to accommodate the promise to the small boat owners. The GSLP/LIBS called on the then Government to make public the details of the deal during the election campaign but they refused to do so. Now we know why.

They knew well they had acted wrongly and against the interests of the people of Gibraltar and they had to hide this from the electorate at the time. Against this background, the calls by the GSD Opposition for more transparency from the new Government is simply unbelievable; they want more answers to questions in Parliament but would undoubtedly prefer that none of this filth for which they are responsible for should be made public. People in glass houses don’t throw stones.

The deal also unmasks the GSD as hypocrites on matters related to planning. The new Government was committed to making Government Projects go through the planning process. Minister, Joseph Garcia told Parliament last month that this is presently on hold.

The GSD charged him with making a u-turn even though he still has four years in front of him in which to implement his electoral commitment. With the disclosures of the Ocean Village deal we can see clearly the double standards of the GSD. They signed a deal committing the Government to approve or waive planning considerations left, right and centre in what are private sector projects. Clearly they intended to bully the Development and Planning Commission into accepting everything they had signed.

Against this background they have the gall to complain that Garcia is not fulfilling his commitment to make Government Projects go through the planning process, something which is presently on ice because Garcia is being prudent and cautious and wants to make sure that his commitments can be fulfilled without hiccups, he clearly first has to clean up the mess he has inherited from the GSD. Funny how the GSD has made no public statement over the Ocean Village deal, they can hardly say it is not true with the ink still fresh on the done deal. They sold out to the owners of Ocean Village in a rush to win votes with no consideration whatsoever for protecting Gibraltar’s best interests.