Government orders full forensic audit of OEM and Haymills payments

Bay View

GIBRALTAR (Press release) Government has formally requested that the Principal Auditor conducts a full forensic audit of the payments made to OEM and Haymills in respect of the south district housing developments. This is a manifesto commitment of the new GSLP Liberal Government. The audit will be published when it is ready. It will be recalled that the GSD Government awarded a contract to the OEM group of companies for the construction of three housing projects at what came to be known as Cumberland Terraces, Nelson’s View and Bay View. This raised eyebrows at the time for a number of reasons not least that some of the plots were not included in the original tender.>>>

The developer had no track record of building homes of this kind in Gibraltar. The old Government moved in and repossessed the different sites from different companies in the group after the 2007 general election and became the developer. The contractor Haymills collapsed soon afterwards and the Government, through its wholly-owned company, stepped in to complete the development.

 

It was made public at the time that, even before the collapse of Haymills, the GSD Government released to it the retention money it held in respect of these projects.

 

The view of the new Government is that the previous administration failed to ensure that these so-called affordable housing schemes were run appropriately, built according to specification and delivered on time. The very, many problems with the construction now give rise to a need for a massive amount of remedial work.

 

We called for a full forensic audit when we were in Opposition and now that we are in Government have just requested that such an audit takes place.