The Spanish Association of Civil Guards (AEGC) has reported that its request to provide more personnel and resources to all Civil Guard units in the Canary Islands has been "systematically ignored" for years, which prevents them from giving citizens "the service they require and pay for with their taxes."
AEGC has denounced in a statement that with the lack of personnel on the islands and the "deficient and scarce" material they have, they are "increasingly slow" in providing care.
Therefore, they again demand that the Executive "stop inventing and patching" that only serve for the moment, but do not solve the security problem of the Canary community, which, in their opinion, presents numerous open fronts: drug trafficking, immigration, coast, tourism...
Crime in the Canary Islands, on the rise
Crime data in the Canary Islands show that last year, from January to September alone, crimes increased by an average of almost 20%. In the case of Lanzarote, the municipality of Tías is the most affected, with 18.8%.
However, the AEGC describes these figures (offered by the Ministry of the Interior) as "deceptive" because the statistics only reflect municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants, leaving 58 municipalities without appearing, which shows that the real data "could be even worse."
3,780 troops for 88 municipalities
Therefore, the organization affirms that "a new deployment more in line with this reality" is essential, since, in addition to the above, the policies of offering places from the 2008 crisis continue to hinder them.
"The replacement of lost personnel is slow and larger promotions are necessary to complete and expand the staff of the two Canary commands by at least 30%, so that an efficient and effective service can be provided to citizens," they pointed out.
In the Canary Islands, as in the rest of the communities, this security body carries the greatest weight of the security of the municipalities, at a rate of 34 in the province of Las Palmas and 54 in that of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, counting for this with 3,870 troops who must take charge of "all the specialties that the community has" (air service, canine service, mobile material service, maritime service, Geas, information service, Judicial Police, armament, occupational risks, GRS, traffic, Usecic and tax service, Citizen Security, in addition to uncatalogued units such as Viogén), so, of the 3,870 agents, "many of them do not perform security tasks."
In this sense, the agents defend that the question lies in "having the will to improve" as they do, who despite the "terrible working conditions", every day "we go out to the street" to work.
