After learning of the ruling by the High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) that acquitted Andrés Barreto in the case of the Tourist Centers, the president of the Cabildo, Inés Rojas, sent a complaint to the Prosecutor's Office to open an investigation into the possible misuse of funds. The spokesperson for Intersindical Canaria appeared today as a witness and ratified before the prosecutor, Miguel Pallarés, his statements published in a media outlet that questioned the administration of the CACTs in recent years and the destination of 18 million euros.
Barreto clarified, as he had done in court during the trial, that there is no accusation on his part against any worker of the Tourist Centers. "I clarified it because there are some who do not want to assume their political responsibility and are using the workers to hold them responsible for having taken 18 million euros, which is not true," he said on the radio program Buenos Días Lanzarote.
The union leader even thinks that if the Tourist Centers have survived the catastrophe of management, it has been precisely because of the commitment of all the employees. Andrés Barreto reiterated in the Prosecutor's Office that he understands that there has been waste and diversion of public money and that, for that same reason, he also requested the respective investigation. He again requested an external audit of the management of the last 12 years to corroborate his accusations and punish those responsible. However, Barreto's personal impression is that the complaint will not "go anywhere" since the Prosecutor's Office will surely ask for the names of the people involved in order to act. Barreto has not directly accused anyone and has always referred to the politicians who governed in recent years, however, he thinks that it is the responsibility of the investigators to investigate the matter.
The spokesperson for Intersindical will await the resolution of the Prosecutor's Office, but in the event that an investigation is opened, he believes that those responsible must assume all the consequences, and if the procedure is filed, he believes that political responsibility must be made public. "I insist again that audits be carried out to find out what has happened to public money. "They are not going to silence me until it is said exactly what has happened in recent years," he said.
No ambitions
Andrés Barreto conveyed to the prosecutor that he has no personal or political ambitions with respect to the matter in question. He assures that, like any citizen, he wants transparency in the management of public institutions and therefore his greatest desire is that the truth be clarified.
It should be remembered that the Court of First Instance No. 2 of Arrecife dismissed the lawsuit filed by the Cabildo and the Centers of Art, Culture and Tourism (CACTs) against Barreto for an alleged illegitimate interference by the defendant in the honor of the Cabildo of Lanzarote and the CACTs. Barreto said, in an interview granted to a media outlet in May 2004, that there was no accounting for the last few years in the Tourist Centers, with a shortfall of some 3,000 million pesetas (18 million euros) being perceived, and that there was also resale of tickets in the Tourist Centers.
The judge considered that the information and opinions offered by Barreto in his interview were not simple rumors or insinuations, but are sufficiently truthful and contrasted. Regarding the statements about the accounting of the Centers, the ruling alludes to the fact that they are based on the report of the economist Antonio González Viéitez (creator of the new management model of the Centers), which means that the information is sufficiently contrasted, since it shows that the director of each Tourist Center is the one who controls the personnel and organizes the services.
With respect to the resale of tickets, some workers of the Centers, who testified as witnesses in the act of the Trial, affirmed, under oath or promise, that they had seen said practices.
