Government’s response on the closure of the Office for Immigration and Home Affairs weak and completely misses the point

Government’s response on the closure of the Office for Immigration and Home Affairs weak and completely misses the point

The Government’s response on the closure of the offices of the Office for Immigration and Home Affairs for one full day is weak and completely misses the point.
The basic fact is that the Gibraltar taxpayer is having to foot the bill, by way of many thousands and in some cases millions of pounds in rental of Govt depts which are being moved from properties currently owned by the Government to private properties. It is this essential point that fails to make sense from a value for money perspective, which the Government is refusing to answer.

In respect of the Immigration Office we are paying an annual sum of £217,680 (as at February 2025) and it is ironic that within 8/9 months after moving from offices which it was claimed were not fit for purpose, in part because they suffered from water ingress, the services to the public had to be stopped for one full day precisely because of severe and significant water ingress in the new property.

It is noteworthy that Technical Services, which is moving from Sir Joshua Hassan House to the to be refurbished property (also at taxpayers’ expense) at the Dockyard building, on grounds that the current Government-owned premises, where it is currently housed, are not fit for purpose, is itself going to be used to house another Government service, namely the mental health facility. On what basis can the Government defend a relocation to premises which were found to be not good enough for Technical Services but have been deemed good enough for
the mental health facility?

Damon Bossino said: “These issues are all the more pertinent when the Chief Minister appears to be heralding a period of belt-tightening when discussing salaries citing world-wide economic pressures. Perhaps he should be looking closer to home as the reason for the public- finance squeeze which he is concerned about.”

The Government’s positioning and policy in this area simply do not make sense.