The musical performance of the Mexican artist Alejandro Fernandez at the San Ginés Festivities cost the public coffers of the Arrecife City Council 749,000 euros (with taxes) and was carried out on the same day as the concert despite the refusal of the Municipal Intervention Area to carry out the contracting due to the city council's "lack of planning".
Last Friday, August 22, three days before the performance scheduled for Monday, August 25, the capital's city council drafted, through the Department of Tourism, a Technical Specifications Sheet (PPT) to hire the Mexican as the crowning touch of the municipal festivities. This contracting had already been announced in the program of the San Ginés festivities a week earlier.
In her refusal, the interim auditor assured that there was an "increased expense" due to the lack of planning and that this also made "impossible the fulfillment" of the specifications by the contracting company Preventos Media SL, warning that the security plan could not be approved or the necessary permits and authorizations processed for the event. Alejandro Fernández's contract was tendered in a negotiated procedure without publicity and was sealed on August 25.
The auditor accuses Tourism of "strangling" her work
On the same Monday of the concert, the interim auditor of the City Council positioned herself "totally against" the file, formulated an objection against it and pointed out the "budgetary instability" of the city council, warning that its delay meant an increase in public spending. At the same time, she stressed that it should have been the Festivities area, managed by Echedey Eugenio (CC), and responsible for organizing the San Ginés Festivities, and not the Tourism area, managed by Eli Merino (PP), that should have carried out the file.
In the aforementioned Intervention report, she indicated that the city council was failing to meet the deadlines, causing the prior and award of the technical specifications to occur "on the same day as the performance" and assured that "this way of working of the Tourism area only seeks to strangle this auditor".
Lack of credit in Festivities and delays in the documentation
In response, the mayor of Arrecife, Yonathan de León, lifted the intervention objection on the afternoon of that same August 25, shortly before 6:00 p.m., and continued with the musical contracting. To do so, he relied on the discrepancy report of a municipal technician.
In this report, the technician indicated that the processing of the contract was conditioned by the "urgency" with which the Department of Festivities managed the contracting of the performance and adds that the Tourism Area assumed the processing of the file because it is the one that has "adequate and sufficient credit" to assume the costs and due to the tourist interest of the event.
To which she adds that the contracting of the Colombian Sebastian Yatra last year was also carried out by the Tourism area. However, she highlights that "in future years" it should be Festivities who assume the expense of this type of event, since it is the competent area to organize the patron saint festivities. In addition, she highlights "the lack of planning" of Festivities for not foreseeing and reserving credit for this expense, which is "foreseeable" since it is repeated every year and points out that "it should have been programmed with greater anticipation".
The technician adds that the processing of the file was also delayed because the company proposed for the contract "did not provide all the required documentation in a timely manner" and that it did not deliver until the last days the "complete justification" of "essential documents" to carry out the file "with all the guarantees".
In this sense, she defends that the increase in cost "cannot be attributed to administrative planning", but to "technical and logistical" conditions inherent to a show of this magnitude and to the "costs derived from insularity", such as air cargo of equipment or flights.
More than 960,000 euros in concerts for San Ginés
According to what is published on the public platform of State Contracting, for now, the concerts of the San Ginés Festivities have cost the public coffers more than 962,000 euros. Broken down, the largest amount is taken by the musical performance of Alejandro Fernández, with 749,000 euros; to which are added 41,569.5 for the performances of the Fiesta de la Chola; 41,740 for the service of the San Ginés Joven 2025 concert; the performance of Antoñito Molina cost 85,172 euros; while the San Ginés Rock Festival, with the performances of S and Koma amounts to 44,661.8 euros.
