The new legal case opened at the end of 2018 against the acting president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, has continued to advance in the Courts and will lead him to testify as a person under investigation next Monday, June 17, for an alleged crime of malfeasance by omission related to the cochineal transformation center. Along with San Ginés, the other person under investigation in the case, former Agriculture Councillor Antonio Morales, has been summoned.
One of the companies that submitted a bid to manage that center was the one that filed this lawsuit, considering that the conditions of the award had been breached. And it is that although what was tendered in 2014 was a center to transform cochineal, what finally ended up opening last summer was a museum, as can be read both on the sign located on the facade and the signage that indicates the location of this space.
In its day, the Cabildo assured that the project presented by the winning company had been taken into account in the award, for the amount of cochineal that it committed to buy and process and what that would mean to "promote an industry forgotten during the last years". However, the truth is that since the opening there is no record that it has made any acquisition, nor that land destined for the cultivation of prickly pear and the growth of cochineal has been recovered, as was also announced then.
From industry to revitalize the sector to museum and store
The awarding of this center financed with public funds was carried out by the Cabildo in August 2014, but almost four years later the company had not put it into operation, without the Corporation explaining the reasons. Finally, the center opened its doors last summer, but without public announcements or inauguration events, and with an activity that everything points to that has nothing to do with what had been put out to tender.
The reason for this delay in the opening and the change of use would be in the category of the land where the center was built, which would not allow industrial activity. In fact, in the few explanations given since 2014 by the Corporation it was pointed out that it was waiting for permits to be able to open the facilities. Permits that had to be granted by the Haría City Council, but that would have been conditioned by the General Plan.
Given this situation, the complaint is based on the fact that the tender should have been annulled, since what has ended up being done has nothing to do with what was tendered and with what was required in those specifications. In fact, in 2017 even new works were carried out in the center to adapt it and the investigation focuses on whether a new tender should have been called, establishing bases according to what was finally going to be done.
However, the Cabildo decided to go ahead and the center that was announced more than a decade ago -when funds arrived from the State for these works- as an industrial commitment to revitalize this activity, has ended up being a museum and a store.
At least the fourth charge
Now, the still president of the Cabildo and former councillor Antonio Morales will have to explain what happened before Judge Ricardo Fiestras, who has summoned them for next Monday as persons under investigation, which is what was previously known as defendants. Both San Ginés and Morales had already been summoned in this case for last January, but finally those statements were suspended to collect new documentation that was requested from both the Cabildo and the Haría City Council. And once received, this new date has already been set for those statements.
In the case of San Ginés, this is at least the fourth criminal case in which he is being investigated. In another of them, for the seizure of the Montaña Roja desalination plant, he is even about to sit in the dock, having already ordered the opening of oral proceedings. In addition, he is also being investigated in a separate piece of that same procedure, for alleged embezzlement in the payments made to San Ginés' lawyer and personal friend, Ignacio Calatayud. The other case in which he appears as a person under investigation, for the awarding of works related to the old Inalsa, is still in the investigation phase.
