The Transparency Commissioner has agreed to uphold a complaint filed by the former spokesperson of Podemos in the Cabildo, Carlos Meca, thus confirming that the institution chaired by Pedro San Ginés violated the law by concealing documentation related to Canal Gestión from him for three years. Meca requested this information shortly after taking office in the past term, but it has been now, after the change of government and in response to a request from the Commissioner, that the Corporation has responded and finally delivered the information.
Therefore, although the resolution issued by the Transparency Commissioner on September 28 considers the procedure "terminated for having lost its purpose", it also upholds the claim for "formal purposes" and gives a warning to the Cabildo for the way it proceeded under the mandate of San Ginés.
In its resolution, the Commissioner warns the Corporation that "failure to comply with the obligation to resolve requests for access to public information within the deadline, in case of reiteration, constitutes serious/very serious infractions" included in the Transparency Law, and urges it to "expedite the procedures for processing requests for access to public information so that the response occurs within the deadline".
Opacity on the Canal contract and its monitoring
In addition to this claim, the former spokesperson of Podemos filed another complaint with this same body dependent on the Parliament of the Canary Islands that has not yet been resolved, so he still has not received other documentation that he requested in 2016, and that is also related to the monitoring of the contract with the Madrid-based company to which San Ginés handed over the water management on the island.
Regarding the claim that has already been upheld, Carlos Meca filed it last May. In it, he explained that it was in October 2015 when he first registered a written request for all the minutes of the meetings of the Monitoring Committee of the contract with Canal Gestión, given the opacity that existed on the operation of this body and the doubts about the contract itself. In fact, the Justice ordered later to review that award, in a sentence that San Ginés also hid for months, until it was revealed by La Voz.
Along with the minutes of those meetings, Meca requested information on the names of the people who formed or had been part of that Monitoring Committee and those of the people or companies that had received payments for participating in it. In addition, he requested a copy of the operating regulations of the Committee and confirmation of whether Canal was "bearing the expenses".
After two months without even receiving a response, the spokesperson of Podemos reiterated his request in November 2015 and did so again without success in January, February, April and July 2016. Finally, in August of that year he received a response through the Island Water Council, but partial and incomplete. In fact, they only gave him the minutes of five of the meetings of the Committee, keeping the content of the rest hidden. Thus, Meca again requested the delivery of all the minutes with a new writing dated September 16, 2016 - which he later reiterated on several occasions - and which is what the Transparency Commissioner is now ruling on.
The documents, finally delivered "in the allegation phase"
"The local administration has not complied with the deadlines established to resolve the request for information formulated by the now claimant in accordance with the Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information", the Commissioner's resolution states. And it is that although that second writing was also reiterated in October and December 2016 and again in February 2017, the government of San Ginés did not even respond and continued to hide those minutes.
Faced with this breach of the Law, Meca turned to the Transparency Commissioner, who last June requested the complete file and notified the Cabildo of the opening of this procedure so that it could present allegations in its defense. The response came last September, already with the new government group, which upon the request of the Commissioner delivered to the former spokesperson of Podemos the requested documentation.
"The Cabildo of Lanzarote has proceeded to transfer the information in the allegation phase, when the appropriate thing would have been to respond directly to the applicant within the legally established period of one month from when the administration received the request for access, in accordance with the provisions of article 46 of the Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information", concludes the resolution when upholding this claim, which is added to another that is still pending resolution.
More documents that he refused to deliver
In that second complaint, Carlos Meca denounced that he was also not given the information he requested on the list of total expenses linked to the Monitoring and Control Committee, whose creation was established in the contract signed with Canal. In this case, he requested the information in September 2016 and never even received a response at any time, despite the fact that he also reiterated this request on numerous occasions in the following years.
"The requested data is public, it is not specially protected data. In this case we consider that the public interest, transparency and the right to access to information of the Podemos political group of the Island Council is justified. The request connects directly with the right of a political group to know the functioning of public institutions and the way in which public resources are used, so it is appropriate to answer and provide said information", said the former spokesperson of the purple formation in the complaint that he raised to the Transparency Commissioner.
In that writing that is still pending response, Meca recalled that the Law establishes that "failure to comply with that duty will entail disciplinary responsibility for obstruction of the constitutional right to the free exercise of public office".
