The Hotel and Extra-Hotel Association of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Ashotel) has issued a statement supporting its president, Jorge Marichal, after his conviction this Monday to two years in prison for a crime against the Public Treasury, for evading the payment of taxes.
“Jorge Marichal is an excellent asset in the representation of the hotel tourism business community, amply demonstrated over these more than 10 years at the head of the Presidency,” argues the Tenerife employers' association, which describes the conviction as “a matter of a strictly private nature”, which “should not interfere in the daily work” of the association.
Although the ruling was issued almost a year ago, also ratifying a conviction dating from 2019, it was this Monday when Marichal made his position available to the employers' association, after the sentence was made public by the newspaper El Día.
In addition to Ashotel, Jorge Marichal also presides over the Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation (CEHAT), which has not yet commented. However, the Executive Committee of the Tenerife association did meet this Monday in an extraordinary and urgent manner, convened by Marichal himself.
“In view of the information published yesterday, its members listened carefully to the details that Jorge Marichal gave them about the July 2019 ruling of the Criminal Court number 8 of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, confirmed, notified and published in May 2020 by the Provincial Court on a particular case that strictly affects his person,” they state in their statement.
"Unanimous support" from the Ashotel Committee
Afterwards, they explain that the president made his position available to the Committee and withdrew from the meeting so that they could deliberate, and the decision was to show him their unanimous support” and “request his continuity at the head of the Presidency of Ashotel.”
Among the reasons, they point to his “leadership, training, passion, capacity, dedication and desire that he has dedicated to Ashotel since his first election, in November 2011.” “His management has always pursued a common good objective for the Association and the Canary Islands tourism sector, a characteristic that has prevailed at all times in his daily work,” they add.
In addition, they emphasize that “Ashotel is a non-profit business organization of a private nature that acts within the framework of its powers; It is respectful of the circumstances relating to the private sphere of its associates and has its own autonomy for making its decisions.”
The sentence that has now been known, and for which Marichal had not given explanations at the time, sentenced the businessman to two years in prison, a fine of 585,896 euros and loss of the possibility of subsidies or public aid and the right to enjoy tax benefits and incentives or Social Security for three years.
In addition to considering it proven that he evaded the payment of almost 300,000 euros in a sale operation, the sentence indicates that the president of the employers' association did not deposit the annual accounts "for years" in one of his companies and did not present the Corporate Tax declaration from 2006 to 2020 nor did he keep the accounting "adequately."
