Podemos Lanzarote has announced that it will demand that political responsibilities be clarified “if the information revealed this Monday by the digital newspaper El Confidencial is confirmed”, which has revealed the results of the “alleged report” economic to face the coronavirus crisis on the island.
The purple formation recalls that the Cabildo itself announced on August 5 that for that report it had “hired the services of three prestigious economists”, Daniel Lacalle, Miguel Sebastián and José Carlos Díez. However, he points out that in the El Confidencial article, only one of the three “is responsible for the aforementioned report”. In fact, “Daniel Lacalle and Miguel Sebastián claim to have no relationship with it and have not received a single euro for this work”, says Podemos.
In addition, it questions that the report “was finally commissioned from the Lanzarote Foreign Promotion Society (SPEL), directed by the popular councilor Ángel Vázquez, instead of by the Cabildo, as reported by the institution through its website”. Now, Podemos will request that Vázquez appear before the Cabildo plenary session “to explain the details of the hiring and to respond, now yes, to the questions of the opposition”, which denounces that the Corporation has “denied them the documentation” of this file “on several occasions.”
“Even if it had to be through a media outlet, at least now we know that Lanzarote paid for a report at 3,000 euros per page, that the company that mediated took 60,000 euros and that everything was a maneuver by SPEL of Ángel Vázquez”, said councilor Myriam Barros, based on the fact that the contract amounted to 138,000 euros plus IGIC.
However, the El Confidencial article itself points out that this amount was not only intended for this economic report. “SPEL has not paid 138,000 euros to make an economic report, that is not true. There were three services”, said Ángel Vázquez, detailing that what was contracted through a consultancy was “a connectivity study, an economic report on the impact of Covid and a communication campaign on the issue of Covid and all that”. Afterwards, he points out that this consultancy was the one that hired “people's services, to be able to do those studies that are requested of them.”
“Despite the urgency, it took more than five months to complete”
Although Podemos attributes the entire amount of the contract to the economic report, in its own press release it refers to the rest of the services included in the award, one of them for “public relations actions”. In fact, it announces that it will request “the dossiers that the agency promised to deliver to the public company, as well as the advertising campaigns and contracts with local agencies that are included in the contract.”
Regarding the hiring, which was carried out with a negotiated procedure without publicity, Podemos underlines that, according to the needs report made public by El Confidencial and prepared by Turismo de Lanzarote, “the usual deadlines could not be followed and a public tender called since there would not be enough material time for the execution of the contract." However, the purple formation questions that “despite this urgency expressed by the entity, the truth is that the report took more than five months to complete and only had 44 pages plus the cover.”
On the other hand, Podemos regrets that there are still “several loose ends, since the need and suitability report issued by SPEL lacks an electronic signature” and “this prevents determining who signed the document and when it was prepared, important data to know both the chronology of events and the people responsible.”