The Transparency Commissioner has published the results of the evaluation of professional associations and chambers of commerce in the Canary Islands for 2019, which have left one outstanding, one notable, and three failing grades in Lanzarote.
The best score on the island was obtained by the Chamber of Commerce, with a 9.64. In addition, it received the third highest score in the archipelago, only behind the Official College of Physicians of Las Palmas and the Professional College of Chemists of the Canary Islands, which achieved a 10.
The second highest score on the island was the Official College of Social Graduates of Lanzarote, with a 7.52, ranking 14th in the regional ranking.
At the opposite extreme are the Lanzarote Bar Association and the Official College of Quantity Surveyors and Technical Architects, which have been directly declared "non-compliant", while the Official College of Architects of Lanzarote received a 0.89.
Of the 62 professional associations and four chambers of commerce in the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands that were summoned to carry out this self-assessment, only 46 accounted to the transparency guarantor body, submitting their declaration corresponding to 2019; while 20 did not, including the two from Lanzarote, thus failing to comply with "the information obligations of the Canary Islands Transparency Law."
In this regard, the Commissioner recalls that the deadline is currently open, until July 31, to submit the evaluation corresponding to 2020, although "a week before the end of the second and last extension, a good part of those who failed to comply last year have not yet begun to upload their transparency declaration."
"Entities that persist for the second time in failing to comply with the information obligations established in the transparency laws will be warned, so that their governing bodies, their members, and the control bodies of the Government of the Canary Islands have due knowledge," he warns.
An average of 4.5 in the Canary Islands
As for the 46 corporations that did submit the declaration, they recorded an average score of 4.5 points. "Given that it was the first year in which they were asked to check their transparency portals and self-assess, the score of 4.5, without being satisfactory, is not as negative as it might seem if one takes into account that the first year that the transparency portals of public administrations were checked, the average score was less than 4," says the Transparency Commissioner of the Canary Islands, Daniel Cerdán.
However, he adds that "six years after the Transparency Law of the Canary Islands came into force, it cannot be acceptable that some professional associations continue without giving an account to their members and the public in general of the information required by the regulations," since they are "democratic organizations, where their governing bodies are elected by vote and obliged by law to render more accounts than private entities and less than public institutions." Therefore, he regrets that "many have not changed their habits despite the transparency laws."
The informative contents that these entities have to publish on their transparency portals range from the applicable regulations and information related to the functions they perform or the organizational chart, the governing, management, or administration bodies, indicating their powers, functions, and professional career; to the contracts they formalize and their amount.
