The PSOE of Lanzarote denounces that the accommodation of the Minister of Sports of Oswaldo Betancort's government, Juan Monzón, cost 628 euros per night per person. The invoices provided to the Socialist Group record a six-night stay at the Outrigger Kona Resort and Spa, from October 6 to 12, for an amount of 3,769.87 euros for each member of the delegation. In total, 11,309.61 euros solely for the accommodation of the three people in this establishment.
Socialist minister Benjamín Perdomo describes the expense as "disproportionate" and demands explanations from the president of the Cabildo. "Oswaldo Betancort has to explain why his government considers it reasonable to pay for rooms of 628 euros per night per person with public money. It is a decision that deserves a clear explanation, especially when the documentation they provide us does not show results that justify such an outlay," he points out.
The invoices expand on the information about a trip whose total cost, according to the documentation previously provided to the Socialist Group, amounted to 25,559.19 euros. Adding the stopover nights in Los Angeles, the accommodation for the attendees reached 12,335.97 euros.
Perdomo particularly questions the government's response to the PSOE's questions about the impact of the trip on Lanzarote. The Socialist Group requested a justification of the visit's media impact, with copies or links to the publications that covered it outside the island's scope, as well as the minutes of the meetings and the agreements reached.
In its response, the minister maintains that a rigorous measurement of media impact would require hiring a specialized company, as they lack the technical staff and tools to carry it out. As supporting documentation, he provides a link to the promotional video and refers to its broadcast during the official transmission of the event. However, he acknowledges that he still does not have the link or the temporal references of that broadcast, which were requested from the organization through SPEL.
"We asked what impact the trip had and they respond with the promotional video and a broadcast whose link they still do not provide. That material, by itself, does not explain what added benefit traveling to Hawaii represented," states Perdomo.
The socialist councilor considers it insufficient to allege the need to hire a consultancy firm to quantify the impact when what was requested included something as concrete as the publications that covered the visit outside of Lanzarote. "Before authorizing an expense of this magnitude, the objectives and the way to verify their results should be clear. Tourist promotion requires planning, criteria, and accountability," he maintains.
The response also does not include minutes of meetings or formalized agreements or accords during the trip. The councilor argues that the meetings were preliminary and informal in nature and offers to prepare an explanatory document of the conversations if the Cabildo deems it of interest and grants a deadline to prepare it.
"The government's response reinforces our impression that this trip was an excursion to an Ironman on the other side of the world at the expense of public money. More than 25,500 euros, and when we ask for explanations, they only talk about informal meetings, without providing agreements or concrete results to justify the expense. Oswaldo Betancort cannot expect us to accept a bill of this magnitude as tourist promotion without proving what Lanzarote has gained from it," concludes Perdomo.
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