The president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, has added another charge after being called to testify as an investigated party in a new criminal case. "I am absolutely calm and eager to clarify any doubts as soon as possible," San Ginés states in a statement sent this Friday by the institution, in which he informs that he has been summoned on January 16th.
The procedure arises from the Instruction Court Number 4 of Arrecife, which has been investigating the bankruptcy of Inalsa for years. Last November, that Court ordered the opening of new proceedings focused on three contracts that were not directly related to the public water company, but to the Island Water Council. That part was sent to distribution in the Dean's Office of the Courts and has fallen to the Instruction Court Number 1 of Arrecife, which has already opened proceedings and has issued the first summonses.
The new case investigates, among other things, the awarding of works worth 2.7 million euros "bypassing" the rules that should govern public procurement, using for this purpose "improperly" the declaration of water emergency that San Ginés promoted under his mandate. This was warned by a report from the Court of Auditors that was contributed to the main case and that led Judge Ricardo Fiestras to reopen the procedure and order the opening of parallel proceedings in another Court. In this way, Fiestras assumed only a fourth contract that was directly related to Inalsa, which was the company that was initially investigated, and sent the other three, related to the Water Council, to distribution.
Million-dollar contracts awarded "directly"
In the press release sent by the Cabildo, it is emphasized that of the four contracts under suspicion, two were signed before San Ginés' arrival to the Presidency, but the other two do correspond to his mandate. Regarding one of them, it indicates that at that time "Fabián Martín, from the PIL group, had the delegated powers." Regarding the other, the president maintains that the procedure was "endorsed by a favorable legality report from the secretary of the Island Water Council." It should be remembered that the secretary, Francisco Perdomo, is also charged along with San Ginés in the case for the seizure of the Montaña Roja desalination plant, and various sources have confirmed to La Voz that he would also have been summoned to testify as an investigated party in this procedure. In addition, along with them, two other employees of the institution would have been summoned.
One of the contracts that is being investigated in the new proceedings is from August 2012, when 1,156,642 euros were allocated to the replacement of pipes in the Inalsa network. According to the Court of Auditors, "the abbreviated processing due to emergency of the contracting file was carried out improperly" and involved the "direct award of the contract."
The other contract signed under the Presidency of San Ginés is from June 2010. Although the water emergency had not yet been declared on the entire island at that date, the truth is that this measure was adopted "partially" in order to sign this contract through the urgent procedure. In total, 1,584,240 euros were allocated to the replacement of the Uga-Las Breñas pipeline and, "in the opinion of the Court of Auditors," as the investigating judge stated in his order, "the emergency processing was also used improperly" and the mandatory contracting rules were omitted.
Claims that the "proposal" came from the managers of the Council and the Consortium
"Regarding what I suppose I am being called to testify about, from the Island Water Council it is explained that the declaration of emergency was a collegiate decision and adopted unanimously by the members of both the Governing Board and the General Board of the Island Water Council, which authorized the Presidency to carry out as many works as necessary through the emergency procedure to minimize losses," San Ginés maintains in his statement. Furthermore, he not only relies on the report of the secretary but also on the intervention of those who were managers of the Water Consortium and the Island Water Council, since he affirms that the "proposal" came "expressly from them. In the case of the former manager of the Council, José Juan Hernández Duchemín, he is also charged along with San Ginés in the criminal case for the seizure.
In addition, the president defends that those works "could have been awarded to a single company by direct election" and that "they were done, however, in lots to four local companies, trying to accelerate their execution, and anticipating what the directives of the European Union have subsequently dictated, which aims to incentivize small and medium-sized local businesses."
Along with those two contracts, the magistrate also requested that a third be investigated in new proceedings, also signed by the Island Water Council in 2007, under the presidency of the socialist Manuela Armas, who governed then with the PIL. The work, consisting of the expansion of the South Desalinated Water Production Center, had a final cost of 1,803,368 euros and, in this case, the Court warns of the absence of reports and "irregularities" in the payments.
"In view of the exposed irregularities, we understand that it is absolutely necessary to exhaustively examine said contracting files in case the commission of a criminal offense could be revealed from their processing or the final destination of the amount," the judge stated in his order, dated November 13.
Pending the opening of oral trial for the seizure
This new criminal investigation that weighs on San Ginés adds to his indictment in the case for the seizure of the Montaña Roja desalination plant, whose instruction is already closed and awaiting the resolution of the appeals and the presentation of the indictment writings to order the opening of oral trial. In the case of the appeal filed by San Ginés against the order that ended the instruction, the Provincial Prosecutor's Office of Las Palmas has requested that it be rejected, since it considers that there are "sufficient indications" to bring the president of the Cabildo to trial for a crime against the public administration and another of coercion.
For his part, in the order prior to the opening of oral trial, the judge of Court Number 2 of Arrecife, Jerónimo Alonso, considered "evidentially proven that the investigated, Pedro San Ginés Gutiérrez, in his capacity as president of the Island Water Council, carried out his personal will, departing from the law" by ordering that seizure. And that he did so without having "competences for it", without that "disproportionate" measure being foreseen by any regulations, "without an urgent situation that justified it" and "without granting a prior hearing procedure" to the company that owns the plant, Club Lanzarote, "violating its right of defense".
In addition, he added that San Ginés availed himself of reports prepared "ad hoc", both by the then manager of the Water Council, José Juan Hernández Duchemín, and by the external lawyer Ignacio Calatayud, who prepared an opinion after the seizure "to provide" the president's action with "an appearance of legality" and to "try to give, in some way, certain legal coverage to the prevaricating resolution". Regarding this lawyer, who "had a main role" in the entire procedure, the order recalled that he advised at the same time the president and Canal Gestión, which was the company to which the seized plants were delivered, obtaining thanks to this "the consequent economic benefit". And that company that benefited from the measure paid 3,300 euros per month plus IGIC to Calatayud, while he acted as advisor to the president in the seizure.
The hiring of Calatayud also gave rise to a separate piece of that case, which is currently being instructed in the Instruction Court Number 4 of Arrecife. In the order ordering the separation of this piece, the magistrate pointed out that in it, "logically", the own Calatayud and the president of the Cabildo and the Island Water Council, Pedro San Ginés, would be "investigated".
