The government group of the Cabildo has defended that it processed "with all the guarantees" the files related to the San Ginés festivities during the extraordinary plenary session that the institution held this Wednesday, on this occasion at the request of the opposition groups Lanzarote en Pie-Sí Podemos and Coalición Canaria, with the purpose of analyzing the signing of the collaboration agreement between the Arrecife City Council and the Cabildo for the joint organization of this year's festivities.
The opposition requested the appearances of Jacobo Medina, in his capacity as vice president of the Cabildo, of Marcos Bergaz, as councilor responsible for Contracting, of Alberto Aguiar, councilor of Culture and of Francisco Javier Aparicio, as head of the Security and Emergency Consortium.
The vice president of the Cabildo, Jacobo Medina, explained that he did participate in the Governing Council that approved the agreement with the capital city council, but that he did not previously know its content, so he could not answer questions about its elaboration that, on the other hand, fell outside the scope of his competences.
"Not a single negative report"
The councilor of Contracting, Marcos Bergaz, for his part, expressed his surprise at the celebration of a plenary session on the patron saint festivities of Arrecife "on the eve of Christmas" which, in his opinion, may be due to the fact that they have left "a great mark".
With respect to the obligations subscribed by the Cabildo in the signing of the Agreement, Bergaz detailed that the island institution processed the contracting of the events and financed the festivities "with 325,000 euros", while the Arrecife City Council was in charge of determining the shows and their characteristics.
In that sense, the councilor of Contracting showed how the ten processed files -as well as the agreement itself- had gone ahead "with all the legal guarantees and without a single negative report".
Bergaz highlighted the good fruits of the collaboration between the Cabildo and the Arrecife City Council for some festivities that, "in practice, have an insular character" and asked a question to the deputy spokesperson of CC, Pedro San Ginés: "If you had continued to be president of the Cabildo, would the festivities have been celebrated?".
The opposition had access to all the documentation "since August"
In his appearance, the councilor of Culture, Alberto Aguiar, insisted again that the design of the program and the choice of the artists and the events were in charge of the Arrecife City Council, while the Cabildo took charge of the "purely administrative" part.
In the same way, he expressed his surprise at the interpellation and because it had been requested by the Lanzarote en Pie-Sí Podemos group because, according to Aguiar "they had access to the entire file as soon as it was requested of me, at the end of last August". In this sense, he assured that the entire opposition had access "from the first moment" to all the documentation referring to the Arrecife festivities.
The councilor of Culture wanted to thank the staff of his department, as well as those of the Contracting and Finance areas for their effort so that the San Ginés festivities would reach "a good port". "Carrying out the San Ginés festivities, without having it planned in the normal activity of the service and almost without time, meant an enormous work, despite the predictions and even negative wishes of those who wandered by all means surmising that the festivities would not be celebrated", pointed out Alberto Aguiar, for whom the "success" of San Ginés is, in his opinion, the reason why "an scandal has been intended to be mounted with these festivities".
"Destroy and harm the interests of the citizens"
For his part, the councilor of Security and Emergencies, Francisco Javier Aparicio, reminded the opposition that it is not up to the Cabildo to assess the security plans of the municipalities, unless they request it and pointed out that as councilor it is not up to him to be always present in all the Security boards. However, he assured that there is a "permanent and fluid communication with all the municipalities, which have the outstretched hand of the Security and Emergency Consortium".
In a final intervention, the president of the Cabildo, María Dolores Corujo, wanted to express her respect to the current mayor of Arrecife, Ástrid Pérez and her willingness to defend the management of both against a Cabildo "that has not always been willing to collaborate".
Corujo highlighted the "collaborative spirit" of the current government group with all the municipalities, the "transparency" in the management and "a different way of governing". Likewise, she reviewed the exchanges of documentation between the Cabildo and the City Council during the previous legislature to prove the permanent refusals of collaboration of the Cabildo. "This was done with the aim of destroying and harming the interests of the citizens of Arrecife", she pointed out.
Once the plenary session was concluded, the president also stated that it was "a pity" that the spokesperson of Coalición Canaria in Arrecife was absent in the Plenary Session of this Tuesday, "which dealt with a crucial issue for Arrecife" and that, however, he has been today among the public, "joining his colleagues to generate shadow on some festivities that they did not want to be celebrated".
