The PSOE of Teguise reveals that the government group headed by Oswaldo Betancort now acknowledges that it will have to pay at least 835,320 euros in interest for the conviction in the so-called Tahíche case, an expropriation procedure that will cost the municipal coffers a minimum of 3.9 million euros.
The socialist spokesman Marcos Bergaz points out that the mayor has called an extraordinary and urgent plenary session for this Wednesday at twelve in the morning, with less than 24 hours to analyze the documentation, with the intention of approving a payment plan for the compensation for the classification as rustic land of an important piece of land in the town of Tahiche.
As will be recalled, the Administrative Litigation Court number 5 of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria condemned the City Council of Teguise, presided over by Betancort, to the payment of 3,073,817 euros plus interest.
The aforementioned sentence was not appealed by the City Council and became final this past month of March, as reported by the socialist group. The City Council, presided over by Oswaldo Betancort, also did not appeal in 2018 the fair price agreed by the Canary Islands Valuation Commission for the six properties subject to the litigation.
The payment plan that is being taken to the plenary session, "unilaterally", warns Bergaz, means "mortgaging again" the City Council of Teguise for practically a decade, in this case until June 30, 2030.
"The government group of Oswaldo Betancort, which has tried to tiptoe through this case, proposes that 300,000 euros be paid this year and that for nine more years the City Council pays 348,709 euros per year", details the socialist councilor.
This means that, to the sentence that set the aforementioned amount of 3,073,817 euros of compensation, another 364,563.23 of legal interest is added for the judicial resolution and another 470,757.19 euros of interest for the deferred payment, at an interest rate of three percent per year.
Other “more profitable” options
The socialist spokesman highlights the criteria of the Intervention and Treasury departments of the City Council of Teguise regarding the payment of the sentence in the Tahiche case "in a deferred manner" through a payment plan that is more beneficial for the City Council than the proposal that the government is transferring.
In that sense, the Intervention and Treasury report highlights that "another type of financing can be used" to settle the debt, "such as the current liquid treasury surplus, after the pertinent budget modification or through a credit operation, which currently has a more favorable interest for this administration than the interest rates proposed" in the payment plan that is being taken to the plenary session.
The aforementioned departments of the City Council understand that "some of the previous ways", the use of treasury surplus or a bank loan, "would be more profitable for the institution than facing the payment of the sentence through the proposal made" in the payment plan that the government team intends to approve, which hides behind the unstable economic situation.
"Serious damage to public coffers"
The spokesman for the PSOE in the City Council of Teguise emphasizes that the Tahíche case, "is a new economic burden for the residents of the municipality, who unfortunately have had to get used to this type of setback, as happened in its day with another millionaire sentence in Caleta de Caballo".
"The most worrying thing", says Bergaz, "is that we fear that other similar cases may be repeated, because even the mayor Oswaldo Betancort himself announces that it is possible that there will be new convictions, in a strategy of putting on the band-aid before the wound, but without informing in detail of the cases that now do worry him".
Bergaz recalled that only in the allegations to the 2020 budget were included economic claims for urban lawsuits that totaled more than four million euros, he stressed that the lack of management of this problem has resulted in the government group not having presented this year's budget and criticized the refusal to hold a commission in the City Council to put on the table all the urban conflicts that may have economic consequences for the Institution.
