Representatives of the Temporary Union of Companies (UTE) Estibadora Los Mármoles-Naviera Pinillos reported this past Thursday night to the Port Authority of Las Palmas (APLP) the company Estibadores Lanzarote-Contenermar (Canaria Marítima de Consignaciones), which they accuse of trespassing.
According to the minutes submitted to the state entity by the managers of the UTE, several operators were proceeding late last Thursday to the installation of the new crane that the president of the Port Authority of Las Palmas, José Manuel Arnáiz Brá, has authorized to Estibadora Lanzarote but, due to a lack of foresight in the measurements of the rails and the bases of the elevator, they tried to cut without permission a metal fence owned by Estibadora Los Mármoles, as stated in the complaint filed.
It was precisely their employees who stopped the attempted "trespassing", drafting a report at the headquarters of the Port Authority in Los Mármoles and witnessing how the crane was finally abandoned without being installed, being diagonally across and between several bars and the edge of the dock.
The managers of the UTE believe that the lack of foresight led to the installation errors of a crane that, as lavozdelanzarote.com advanced this past Friday, has been surprisingly granted by Arnáiz precisely to the only company that participated with the UTE in a public tender.
The most serious thing, according to what they certified, is that it was precisely Estibadora Los Mármoles-Naviera Armas, S.A., under the nomenclature of Terminal Marítima de Arrecife S.A., was the company whose offer was better scored and to which they awarded the project for the installation and operation of a public container terminal in the port of Arrecife for the indirect management of the public stevedoring service.
The UTE denounces that after taking the steps that it was supposed to take to materialize such administrative concession, including the purchase of the new crane in Hamburg as well as its transport to Lanzarote, the state entity decided to resolve in favor of the other company that competed in the public tender.
The managers of the UTE, now called "Terminal Marítima de Arrecife S.A.", consider themselves legitimate winners of the contest and do not understand that now the company that surpassed it in points in the tender obtains this permit.
They also criticize the pressures to which the Port Authority has been subjecting them, for example with the sine qua non requirement to certify within a maximum period of five days the purchase and transfer of the aforementioned crane from Germany, or with the reduction of the rate that the company should charge for the rental of a public portainer crane without a crane operator. Thus, the amount of 420 euros per hour was reduced without apparent reason to 288 euros, and months later the Port Authority of Las Palmas set it at 3757.99 euros.
For all this, the managers of the awardee have filed a contentious-administrative appeal before the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) against a resolution by which the state entity modifies the concession for the operation of the new crane, also requesting the paralysis of the works that, since the beginning of September, have been carried out in the port of the capital of Lanzarote to enable the installation of the crane of the company Estibadora Lanzarote-Contenemar.
As stated in the appeal filed by the UTE, as a result of the installation of this new crane in the northern area of the rolling lane that the portainer crane currently attached to the terminal uses for its longitudinal displacement to the berthing area, the problem that would arise is based on the fact that, by occupying this new crane already installed a space of about 30 meters -it is presumed that it will have similar dimensions to that of public service-, the loading and unloading operations of the suspended containers and the loading and unloading of rolling goods cannot be carried out simultaneously, because the area of the edge of the dock would always be occupied by the crane authorized to Estibadora Lanzarote.
