John Culatto
THE GSD launched an anti-corruption programme that it said would ‘deliver value for money, transparency and standards’ in the lead-up to the October 12 Gibraltar election.
The Gibraltar Social Democrats (GSD), who are trying to get back into government after a 12 year period in Opposition, said it wanted to clean up the Rock.
But independent candidate Robert Vasquez accused the party of copying his policies after he had written about the anti-corruption measures for many years.
“What the GSD are saying now is cover in the manifesto I published last week,” Vasquez told GBC.
The GSD failed to support a 24 point anti-corruption plan put forward by the GSLP/Liberal government in January this year, branding it ‘weak’ at the time.
Instead it proposes to set up a public Inquiry on anti-corruption to look at land deals, tendering processes and contracts.
It will make recommendations on improvement of processes, identify and pursue wrongdoing, the party said in a statement.
“We will tear down the opaque jungle of companies behind which the GSLP/Liberals operate,” it said.
“There’s hundreds of millions of your pounds hidden away in these structures with inadequate accountability to Parliament,” the GSD claimed.
It promised to hold an independent investigation and audit of all wholly owned government companies to trace where money has gone and how it has been used.
Finally the party led by Keith Azopardi vowed to introduce an anti abuse law
‘to regulate who can apply for public contracts and control conflicts of interests’.
It plans to stop those who are close to political parties having the possibility of applying for government contracts.
“Overall this is a package to deliver value for money, transparency & standards,” the GSD concluded.
“In combination with other measures it is a comprehensive plan to clean up Gibraltar.”
But Vasquez remained cynical, claiming that the party had promised similar legislation before and never delivered.
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