Misplaced Sympathy

Dear Sir,

No one could be blamed for viewing our future prospects with a somewhat suspicious eye.

When the new British Ambassador to Madrid opens his mouth to say that the visit of the Spanish Foreign minster to Gibraltar was not a backward step for Spain's sovereignty claim - amazing is it not?

While delivering this gratuitous insult to the Gibraltarians perhaps we should ask the Ambassador. What does he mean by all this which has shocked and angered many patriotic Gibraltarians.

I have a nasty suspicion that he seems to be nodding his head in agreement with the strategy of the Spanish Foreign minister to advance in the sovereignty claim over Gibraltar.

Certainly his expression was a classic example of the British misplaced sympathy that brings to my mind that it was a combination of British tourism and Arms that had maintained Franco in power and consequently denied the Spanish people democracy and in turn subjected Gibraltar and its people to cruel restrictions was worse than the Soviets with their Berlin wall - and which we are still suffering today.

As for his other comment that the British Government have a very strong commitment with the Gibraltarians that it will not enter into negotiations with Spain over Gibraltar sovereignty without their consent - is a lot of nonsense.

When an objective appraisal of events that led to the British Government making an underhand deal with Spain to share Gibraltar's sovereignty produces scant evidence of the British Government ever having a very strong commitment when the Preamble to Gibraltar's constitution was trampled by the British.

Yours sincerely,
Francis Gonzalez

Raffle winners

Dear Sir,

The Committee of the Law Enforcement Torch Run for Special Olympics wishes to inform the general public of the winners of the Government Christmas Lottery Raffle held this past Tuesday 17th November 2009 in conjunction with Draw No 23 of the Gibraltar Government Lottery.

The 1st prize of 50 Full Government Christmas Lottery Tickets went to Mrs Eloisa Wimbleton of 70 Edinburgh House, with Ticket No 19200.

The 2nd prize of 30 Full Government Christmas Lottery Tickets went to Mrs Emily Borg of 7A Hargraves Ramp, with Ticket No 19173

The 3rd prize of 20 Full Government Christmas Lottery Tickets went to Mr Agusto Galliano of 10 Pimlico Close, Montagu Crescent, with winning Ticket No 02856.

The Committee again wishes to thank Charles G Trico Printers for sponsoring the Raffle Tickets, the management of Peralta’s Supermarket, The ICC and Morrisons for allowing our members to sell tickets at their establishments and specially Ms Victoria Martinez and staff at Maxstead Holdings Ltd (Trico Lottery) for their continued and welcomed support in assisting in the sale of the raffle tickets.

The Committee would also like to thank all other persons, to numerous to mention by name who assisted with the sale of the raffle tickets and the general public for their continued and loyal support towards the Law Enforcement Torch Run for Special Olympics.

Robert Peliza
Secretary
Law Enforcement Torch Run

No remuneration

Dear Sir,

I would like to refer to a comment made by Mr Tito Valerga in a letter letter which was published in Panorama on Wednesday the 18th November 2009, to the effect that the Chairman of the Gibraltar Police Authority is in receipt of some sort of remuneration for the performance of his duties.

For the record I would like to clarify that the Chairman of the Gibraltar Police Authority is not in receipt of a salary or any other form of remuneration whatsoever including allowances of any kind. The Chairman and all the members of the Authority are non-paid volunteers who carry out their duties in their own spare time.

With regard to his comment on the Police Complaints Board Mr Valerga should note that the Board publishes its own Annual Report. The 2008 report is available online at www.gpa.gi and the statistics which he seeks are contained in that report. A printed copy of the report can be obtained at our offices. The report for 2009 will be published in January 2010.

E A Guerrero
Chairman
Gibraltar Police Authority

Those bags

Sir,
I refer to your artice on plastic bags and the 'flaw' with the eco-friendly, lifelong bags.

I simply do not take them on my visits to Morrison's. The reason? Simple. At the beginning of the scheme, I bought a couple of these bags. On my next visit to the store I left these bags in the car. When I reached the checkout, I duly paid and placed all my groceries inside the cart, obviously with no bags. Ten metres down the line when I was making my way out of the store, a security guard challenged me to produce a receipt for all my goods.

Thankfully, I did not dispose of the receipt as is normal with me. I felt like a criminal with the inquest I went through. Since then, not only do I keep my visits to this store to a bare minimal, but when I do, I do not carry these eco friendly bags as they are just another gimmick.

Thanks
D. Martinez

People who never retire

Dear Sir,

Gibraltar must be the only place I know where many people never retire. Quite often we hear that a person who has retired from a highly paid job and who is in receipt of his pension and a huge lump sum often succeeds in scoring another highly paid and responsible job.

I feel this is wrong in a small community like Gibraltar as there are many young University kids who come back to Gibraltar with a respectable Degree and cannot find suitable employment. Quite often these talented kids end up doing all sorts of menial and clerical jobs that provides little job satisfaction and a small salary which makes them feel belittled by a society that they consider closed-shop for them. Many end up leaving Gibraltar and finding employment elsewhere.

I would like to mention just a couple of examples as in one letter it is impossible to do much more.

For a start, we have the Chairperson of The Gibraltar Bus company who retired from the Royal Gibraltar Police Force only to land a very well-paid job in a Government created company.

Then we have the Chairperson of The Gibraltar Police Authority, a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment and who is the only person who receives any remuneration apart from his secretary. All the other members of this institution work on a voluntary basis.

Now, as I see it, this latter authority was instituted so that they could monitor and criticise the Royal Gibraltar Police Force and yet in their 'Annual Report' 2008/2009 they spend more time praising the work of the police than anything else.

To make matters worse, this report only says in page 12 'The Independent Complaints Board plays an important role in securing public confidence in the RGP.

I ask, 'How is this possible when the report does not mention or give any statistics on the number of complaints received during the period covered by this report?'

Doesn't anybody want to know? Shouldn't the public be entitled to know how many complaints have been received against the police? After all, Mr. Henry Pinna, who is the Chairperson of this Board said once on GBC. T.V. that if this Complaints Board was not totally independent he would not be in it.

How are we, members of the public, be able to gauge whether this complaints board is truly independent or not when no details, statistics or facts are published about it's whole operation during one whole year?

My experience of the above board is not very good and I will briefly mention what I feel.

First of all, their office is located at No. 1, Casemates and one has to climb three flights of very dirty stairs. Secondly, the door of this office is always closed. This does not make it user-friendly and can be a put-off for many people wanting to make a complaint. Thirdly, when the secretary opens the door she usually cannot attend the person and of course, her learned and conditioned excuse is that they are having a meeting, so the person is asked to come back later or the next day. Quite often people give up.

In my case, I just went for the Annual Report, and she replied that she did not know anything about it, so I had to explain that I had heard through GBC T.V. that the report was already available for members of the public to come and fetch a copy.

I believe that they have the perfect formula to fob members of the public,

a.  a permanently closed front door,

b. three flights of dirty steps to climb,

c. daily meetings at critical times,

d. a secretary that does not even know that the annual report has been published and is available and probably stacks of it sitting in front of her eyes, e.

a Chairperson who gets paid to criticise and monitor the police and spends his time saying that they are doing 'sterling' work (This is his favourite word), and

f. a Police Complaints Board that does not even publish it's findings). I leave it to members of the public to make up their own mind about the above and to relate their experiences like I have done.

Thanking You.
Yours Sincerely
Tito Valerga

This is what counts

Dear Sir,

I refer to the letter by Julio Pons published in your paper today.

I cannot understand Julio’s dismay at my letter, perhaps it is because tenants at Laguna Estate approach the Opposition with their complaints instead of approaching him.

Some feel his judgement on matters related to the estate is blurred by the staunch support he and his family demonstrate towards the GSD for reasons better known to himself.

As to his vivid recollection of events that are supposed to have occurred between 1988 and 1996, it is quite extraordinary that he alone, it appears, should have specific records of things that have happened fifteen or twenty years ago. We will certainly check all these facts when we get back into Government and give him a reasoned reply.

What he cannot ignore is that the GSLP inherited a housing waiting list of over 2000 and left some 400 in the list when it left office. That is putting the welfare of citizens first.

None of what Julio raises has anything to do with the complaints of the long time it has taken the Government to start repairs on the roof of Maidstone House, so it is perhaps Julio that is misleading the public with smokescreens. He seems to have learnt well the tactics of the GSD and the Government. In order to put things into perspective, I would like to remind readers that all this is the result of Charles Bruzon raising publicly complaints brought to him by tenants of Maidstone House over the repairs to the roof of the block. This resulted in a personal attack on him by Housing Minister, Fabian Vinet, which was later supported by Julio Pons. We are glad to point out that after the scaffolding has been up for one year, at long last the roof is being repaired. That is what counts and this is why we raised the issue publicly!

Yours sincerely,
Juan Carlos Perez,
Chairman, GSLP

Dignity at work

Dear Sir,

This year, as in previous years, Dignity at Work Now continues its campaign in creating awareness about bullying in the workplace. We invite everyone to support our flag day this Friday 20th November.

We want to remind employers that allowing the presence of bullying, by commission or omission is bad for business and we advice and indeed encourage them to consider an anti-bullying policy. We are happy to providing a sample policy for consideration.

For, like in any other relationship, conflict through bullying will rear its ugly head and not having a policy to deal with this type of issues only makes matter much worse for employers and employees. Usually more so for the individual employee that may end up reaping the negative consequences of this type of abuse.

In Gibraltar 1 in 3 are suffering the consequences of bullying at work today. This represents 31.8% of employees or well over 5000 (five thousands) individuals falling victims or being targets of workplace bullying and suffering mental health alteration and deterioration of their general wellbeing (Vielma and Buttigieg, 2007).

Dignity at Work Now gets increasing calls for help and advice, mostly from individuals that may not know what to do when confronted with this type of hideous behaviour.

They fail to understand why anyone would act maliciously and often with intent in seeing them out of a job.

We call on and remind government that it is imperative to see that a save working system is implemented by every employer so that employees rights to a safe place of work free from harassment and or bullying is indeed a reality. Sadly, this is not the case in Gibraltar today. In fact, there is nothing in law to protect employees from bullying behaviour and this is in our view is something which is pending for our legislators.

We also call on the Chamber of Commerce and the Gibraltar Federation of Small Businesses to consider advising and encouraging their members to think of an anti-bullying policy so as to promote ‘best practice’ among the local business family. Promoting dignity and psychological wellbeing at work signifies looking after the best interests of their employees and consequently their own businesses.

Yours sincerely
Francis P. Buttigieg
For and on behalf of DAWN

Light a candle mass

Dear All

On Saturday 28th November at 4pm is our 'Light a Candle Mass' at the Cathedral of St Mary the Crowned: in celebration of those who have survived cancer and in rememberance of those who have not.

The congregation will join a procession around the Cathedral and place their lit candles on the Altar. Monsignor Charlie Azzopardi will be officiating, Chris Cortes and Tim Garcia will be singing, breast cancer survivors will be doing the readings and the Offertory.

Afterwards, join us at the Casino Calpe for tea, mulled wine and mince pies.

We hope you can join us.
Many thanks
Committee Breast Cancer Support Gibraltar

Spain surrendered Gibraltar, first under Utrecht, then under Versailles

Dear Sir,

Open letter to anyone out there who can analyse and translate in clear cut terms the following piece of jargon produced in 2008 by the Gibraltar Office of the Spanish Foreign Ministry.

Quote, ‘ La Isla de Menorca aunque perdida por los inglses por el Tratado de Versailles de 1783, solo se recupero definitivamente por Espana mediante el Tratado de Amiens (1802).'

What follows is the text correcting the above statement from none other than Sr Miguel Angel Moratinos: Esto es incierto, La Isla de Menorca fue parte de los extensos territories que Espana recibio a cambio de la cession en perpetuidad de Gibraltar.

Therefore Gibraltar has been surrendered in perpetuity twice, first under Utrecht 1713 and secondly Versailles 1783 which proves why Spain steers clear of any Court of Law but still prepared to flog the dead horse scenario. The immoral and illegal aspects of it all being that they want our land but are not prepared to return what their own Foreign Minister admits were received in exchange for Gibraltar. Please let us be friends but not ‘primos’ and less hugging and more plain talking.

Yours faithfully,
W.L.Chamberland.
 

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