The businessman Juan Francisco Rosa went so far as to assure in court that he made the Kikoland “especially for the children of the municipality, which was the agreement with the City Council”. However, in the same chaotic statement, he also openly acknowledged that “that was made for the clients of the Princesa Yaiza hotel”.
“We were not interested in people from the street coming, because that was made exclusively for the Princesa Yaiza. For their children from Princesa and for the adults”, he admitted at one point in his statement. In others, when trying to justify the occupation of this public green area with a private installation, he referred to Kikoland almost as a kind of NGO, in which he let “the children of the municipality” enter and even “fed” them.
“The City Council gives me the right to use a building that I make, which is called Kikoland, to give to the children, I'm not going to say food, because that sounds ugly... To take care of the children for three months, in exchange for a concession, like the concession that Madrid makes to the subway under the ground”, he argued to explain that free transfer of public land in front of the sea that he received for 50 years, extendable for another 50.
According to Rosa, “for 14 years the facilities have been left to the City Council completely free in the summer for the children of the municipality”, and he assured that there were between “300 and 400”. “They were given breakfast and lunch”, he added, as if it were a kind of soup kitchen. In reality, the City Council has been organizing sports and leisure activities for children and young people during the summer in different facilities for years, including not only Kikoland, but also the swimming pools and courts of other hotels and private clubs in the municipality.
“One year they said that they could not send them, because there was a complaint, I think, from the people of Podemos. They said that unfortunately the children could no longer go to spend their summer vacations in Kikoland”, Rosa added in his statement, referring to the lawsuit filed by the then councilors of the purple formation, Carlos Meca, Pablo Ramírez and Griselda Martínez, who are present in the case as a popular accusation.
However, before that complaint in the criminal proceedings, the City Council had already annulled the agreement by which that public land was ceded, after a devastating report from the Advisory Council, which concluded that the agreement was illegal. And the same conclusion was reached later by the Contentious-Administrative Court and the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, which rejected the appeals filed by Rosa, although to this day he has not yet vacated the facilities.
“I charge” but “deep down it's not charging”
The lawyer for the prosecution began by asking the businessman about the benefits he has received thanks to the exploitation of that land, which functions as an annex service to his hotel, although it can also be accessed by paying a fee. However, Rosa began by assuring that users were not charged.
“I charge through the children of Princesa Yaiza who use it, and deep down it is not charging. Not a euro is charged there”, he assured. However, when asked specifically about it, he did not deny that summer camps were also offered for weeks, which were paid for.
“How did they set the rates, for a week, for two weeks?”, the lawyer insisted. “I honestly don't know right now. I am an administrator, but up to that point I don't take care of such small things”, the businessman replied then.
The reality, as can be seen on its website and in the facilities themselves (now closed due to the health crisis), is that at Kikoland you could hire everything from renting sports courts to celebrating children's birthdays, summer camps or tickets for single days. Although according to him they did not want “people from the street to come”, there were many options if you paid for access.
“I imagine”, “I don't think so”, “sure”
The plot on which the Kikoland was built was a green area that belonged to the municipality, but Rosa maintained in his statement that he was the owner of the land, because he had acquired 260,000 square meters corresponding to roads and green areas in a “Kafkaesque” operation. According to the businessman, that is why the City Council agreed to sign the transfer agreement.
Regarding that agreement, Rosa began by saying that the one who “drafted” it was “the notary”. Faced with the surprise of the lawyer for the prosecution, Nora Ferrer, who asked him if the agreement that Yaiza approved in Plenary in 2004 “was drafted by a notary”, the businessman corrected his answer. “The notary did not draft it. The notary... later we went with the agreement already drafted. I imagine that part of that agreement will also have been made... I don't think so, it was made by the technicians of the City Council at that time. For sure, come on. Nothing is going to be done that the City Council is not the one who does the documentation”, he ended up stating.
However, he could not specify which technicians intervened. “I don't know. I know that architects acted, the councilors themselves acted... I don't know exactly. They called me to sign that it was already prepared, the agreement seemed good to me for both parties and I signed it”.
“But who were you talking to from the City Council?”, the lawyer insisted. “I almost didn't talk, I almost sent our people to talk. I think I have been to the Yaiza City Council eleven times in my life. No, I don't remember if I went to this issue”, Rosa replied, who also “did not remember” who he sent to speak on his behalf.
Regarding whether he later requested a license to do the Kikoland works, he assured that he did - “of course, of course, it is a work that is in sight” -, but he did not provide a copy of the permit. In addition, he could not specify how much that investment was, stating that it was “a joint work” with the hotel, which was actually finished earlier.
“Answer only what you are asked”
The interrogation of Rosa, which lasted for about 45 minutes, was marked by contradictory phrases and by the difficulty in specifying his answers. As an example, as soon as he started, the lawyer for the prosecution asked him if he was a businessman and he replied: “Yes. Well, I think so”. Then, he could not say how many companies he has. “Several. I don't know the exact number”, said Juan Francisco Rosa.
What he did acknowledge is that in the more than 16 years that he has been using public land with Kikoland, he has not paid any type of fee to the City Council. There he began his explanation of why he understood that he had the right to that agreement, and he continued to refer to the same thing every time the lawyer for the prosecution asked him a question.
“What I need is for you to answer my questions”, the lawyer had to warn him more than once, in a message to which the judge also joined, who had to intervene on different occasions. “Answer only what you are asked”, the magistrate pointed out at one point. “Give simple, concrete answers. Don't explain yourself so much”, he asked again later.
However, Rosa insisted again and again on referring to many years before that agreement was signed, when the Costa Papagayo Partial Plan began to be developed and he claims that the City Council did not properly register the public land that corresponded to it for roads and green areas, which later ended up in his hands.
“It is a concession with right of use. And when my right of use ends, I will give the City Council an investment made, some well-finished, well-cared-for facilities, like the aquapark that exists in Playa Blanca, exactly the same. And like there are seven more areas in that Partial Plan and in those the City Council received nothing and from me it received 260,000 square meters”, he assured. However, the truth is that the Canary Islands Advisory Council has already concluded that “the only thing that could have been agreed with the City Council was the documentary formalization of the mandatory transfers” of all those meters, including the part occupied by Kikoland.
However, Rosa even defended that “thanks to the fact that he gave the City Council these areas, good or bad, the City Council with its money built what they call Parque de las Naciones. The City Council invested three and a half million euros there. Thanks to a public green area that I gave him, 260,000 meters, he made those facilities”.
In addition, he defended that the City Council leave public land to businessmen. “Do you know what, miss?”, he asked, addressing the lawyer for the prosecution. “It was the only way for the green areas to be taken care of. That's normal, that's done in Madrid, in Barcelona and in Tenerife”. However, a ruling by the Court and another by the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands have confirmed that that transfer was illegal, because the land belonged to the City Council and cannot hand over public land without establishing a fee and without calling a contest, which would be mandatory to guarantee free competition, in case its private use was going to be allowed.
He repeated the operation on other land he bought later
The cause also investigates a second agreement, with which Rosa repeated the same operation, but to put the land in the hands of another businessman. According to his story, one of his companies, Salmepa, had bought another 500,000 meters of land in the northern area of that partial plan, and was in charge of making the urbanization and selling plots. There, he says that one of the buyers told him: “I would like to reach an agreement like you have done in Kikoland”.
“I tell him, no problem at all. But that has to be authorized by the City Council”, said Juan Francisco Rosa. “What can we do? Well, nothing, I give up the area and at the same time I have no problem with you making an agreement with the City Council, the same as mine or better”, he added, confirming that both acts were signed at the same time before a notary.
However, he did not clarify how and on what basis that transfer was made. Previously he had assured that before starting to urbanize that new area, he gave the City Council the land that corresponded to it for green areas and roads, as was his obligation. However, the truth is that a part was again left in private hands after Rosa's intervention, and again without establishing any type of fee.
