The Prosecutor's Office has expanded its investigation into alleged irregularities in the contracting of festive events in Arrecife and has requested documentation not only from the City Council but also from two bodies dependent on the Cabildo of Lanzarote, chaired by Oswaldo Betancort: the Lanzarote External Promotion Society (SPEL) and the Centers of Art, Culture and Tourism (CACT).
According to information obtained by La Voz de Lanzarote, the Public Prosecutor's Office has requested from both entities the sponsorship files related to the Navilan fair, as part of an investigation opened to clarify whether irregular contracts were made, services were rendered without prior contractual coverage, or administrative mechanisms were used retrospectively to provide them with legal standing.
In parallel, the Prosecutor's Office has sent a new official letter to the Arrecife City Council, ordering, through the General Secretariat and within ten days, the preparation of an express, detailed, and chronologically ordered report. The request focuses on the possible execution of services without a prior contract in the 1st and 2nd Arrecife Christmas Fair "Navilan" (2023–2024 and 2024–2025), the Arrecife Carnivals 2024, and the April Fair 2024.
The document requires the precise identification of any detected irregularities, services rendered without prior contractual coverage, the actual dates of their execution, the companies or individuals who carried them out, and the administrative chronology of necessity reports, expenditure proposals, and award resolutions. It also demands clarification on whether minor contracts, sponsorships, or other "ex post" mechanisms were used to cover work already performed, with special emphasis on the role of Municipal Audit. Detailed information is requested regarding the objections raised by Municipal Audit, their content, the procedural stage at which they occurred, the affected contracts, whether they were lifted, by which body and with what justification, and if, despite the objections, the corresponding payments were made, indicating amounts, dates, and budgetary allocations
As La Voz de Lanzarote already published, the complaint for these alleged irregularities was filed by lawyer Octavio Topham and, as a result, the Public Prosecutor's Office has requested the full copy of the administrative files for Navilan 2023-24, 2024-25, Carnaval 2024, and the Feria de Abril 2024Repairs, possible contract splitting, and the use of minor contracts are now under the scrutiny of the Prosecutor's Office, which has already sent two official requests to the City Council and has also asked the municipal Audit Office for a preliminary report on the legality of the contracts and the impact of lifting reservations on financial control
