Opposition Leader says no reason for further delays for publication of McGrail Inquiry

The Leader of The Opposition says the McGrail Inquiry Report should be published immediately and by Monday if the ongoing Inquest concludes by Friday.

Keith Azopardi adds it should not now be held back for any other reason.

Leaving the report till later next week, he claims, will take the publication so close to Christmas as to effectively be an attempt by the Government to bury it into the Christmas break.

Keith Azopardi says that given the Government has had the report for six weeks already, it would be outrageous and counter-productive to the public interest to withhold it for any longer given the very serious issues at stake. He claims the holding back of the Report so that Mr Picardo could be available to respond from the 5th of December was no more than the GSLP Government acting in accordance with its own self-serving interests and not the public interest. Keith Azopardi asks whether there were no other Ministers able to do an interview on the subject given the Government of Gibraltar were core participants?

Additionally, he says it's increasingly untenable for the Government to resist disclosing the embargoed copy to the Leader of the Opposition immediately when GBC and the Chronicle have had it for nearly two weeks.

Keith Azopardi says that hanging on to the Report for dear life can only be because they are so worried about its contents. By next Monday, he says, the GSLP Government will have had the report for nearly 7 weeks and GBC and the Chronicle almost three weeks. He asks how it can be reasonable to provide an embargoed copy to the main press for weeks but withhold it from the Opposition.  This he says, is no more than naked party-political interest adding the GSLP leadership and leadership contenders need to justify that.

The Opposition Leader claims this is a Government that is running scared from publication, still acting in a self-serving way and trying to massage all aspects of the presentation of the report.

The public, he says, will see through all that when the time comes.