The Socialist Party has registered an urgent motion in the Arrecife City Council asking that “the imminent payment” of 27 million euros be stopped as the remainder of the payment for the expropriation of the Ginory land. The socialists emphasize that this payment was approved in the Governing Board “with the only favorable votes of the representatives of the Popular Party and the representative of Somos Lanzarote, Elizabeth Merino, “contrary to what was argued before the Courts of Justice by the City Council itself, without exhausting all the mechanisms allowed by law for the defense of the public interest and with clear damage to public coffers.”
In addition, it emphasizes that it contravenes the plenary agreement that was adopted last March at the request of the Canarian Coalition, which was then in the opposition and now governs with the PP, and also “the new evidence, not provided in its day, that indicates that a large part of that price will be paid for what was a sheet of water and for land that is not owned by the expropriated party.”
“The City Council has the means to prevent the looting of its public coffers due to the, at the very least, negligent defense of its interests back in 2010,” say the PSOE. They are referring to what happened under the Mayoralty of Cándido Reguera, also from the Popular Party, when the City Council “did not exercise the right to file an Administrative Litigation Appeal against the Resolution of the Board of Compulsory Expropriations of the Province of Las Palmas”, thus making a fair price firm that they consider disproportionate. In addition, they join the complaint made months ago by CC, which revealed that “there are no documents in the municipal archives pertaining to the aforementioned Legal controversy dated between the years 2010-2013.”
In their motion, the socialists ask that “the payment of any amount be stopped immediately”, because otherwise “it would be impossible to recover in the future”; and that a procedure for reviewing the fair price that was established in its day by the Board of Compulsory Expropriations of the Province of Las Palmas be urged before the Council of Ministers of Spain.
They also demand that “immediate compliance” be given to the agreement adopted unanimously in the Extraordinary Plenary Session last March at the request of CC, and that an Investigation Commission be created on this issue, as had been requested by the party that today governs with Ástrid Pérez.
In addition, depending on what that Commission reveals, they request that the City Council “immediately demand responsibilities of all kinds, both criminal and civil, from all those people who, through negligence or malice, have given rise to the present situation in relation to the expropriation of the so-called Ginory land with an evident loss of opportunity for the defense of this City Council representing all the residents of Arrecife.”
“Serious anomalies”
The PSOE warns, among other things, that there are “serious anomalies” in the title of ownership of the expropriated party, since “according to the entries in the Land Registry, it would only be the owner of 1,815 square meters of land and not the 10,754 square meters subject to expropriation.” “Hence the absolute need to demand in the present case the contribution of the certificates required by law to proceed with the payment, given the risk that a huge amount of money is being paid with public money to someone who, according to the Land Registry itself, has no right to it,” they emphasize, questioning that the judge of the Contentious-Administrative Court Number 3 of Las Palmas has “ignored” this legal requirement.
In addition, they point out that “very recently, supporting everything stated above, in light of the press reports on this matter, new graphic evidence has appeared” that they attach to the motion, as well as the testimony of “a multitude of residents of Arrecife who, knowing the area where the so-called Ginory land is located” , who assure that “a large part of it, and for which that City Council intends to finish paying 27,000,000 euros, came from a sheet of water that occupied it and that was filled in its day.”
To this they also add that the plot would not only really have an area of a fifth of what is being paid, but that it is also “totally affected by the easements of transit and protection of the 1988 Coasts Law.”