The Tinajo City Council ignores the Transparency Commissioner and denies the information requested by the PSOE. The body that ensures compliance with transparency in public institutions asks the mayor of Tinajo, Jesús Machín (Coalición Canaria), again to comply with his legal obligation and respond to the opposition's request for information on the invoices charged by Canal Gestión or the status of the council's accounts in the past legislature.
The PSOE spokesperson in the City Council, Begoña Hernández, announced this Tuesday that the deadline that the Commissioner offered to Machín to deliver the requested documentation to the Socialist Party has already concluded. "He still fails to comply with his legal obligation, ignoring the requirements," the socialist added in a statement.
"Jesús Machín thus defies the requirements of the highest authority responsible for guaranteeing the transparency of public institutions in the Canary Islands, who resolved that the mayor had to deliver the documentation requested by the PSOE within fifteen business days, a deadline that passed without fulfilling his obligation and that ended on July 25," he added.
The first of the requirements orders the delivery of bank statements and the status of the current accounts of the City Council of Tinajo, for the period from 01/01/2020 to 12/31/2021, specifying the concept of all entries and exits of money from them, while the second refers to the invoices issued by Canal Gestión charged to the City Council in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, as well as the list of debt of the local corporation with said entity.
In view of "the mayor's contempt for his obligation to attend to requests for public information in a timely manner and to abide by the resolutions of the Transparency Commissioner," the socialist spokesperson stated: "The truth is that nothing surprises us about the mayor anymore, because he has long surpassed our capacity for amazement with his recurring attitude of contempt for institutions and the rules of democracy."
"However, we are concerned about this insistence on hiding the payments that he has been making during the last years and we fear that he does not want us to know who may have unduly benefited at the expense of public money," he said.
Begoña Hernández has warned that "what remains now is to inform the Transparency Commissioner of this new breach and require the delivery of the documentation in the Courts, also requesting the application of the sanctions that correspond for this obstructionist conduct that, as the commissioner warns, may constitute a serious or very serious infraction"
The warning of the Transparency Commissioner
As stated in the background cited by the Commissioner in his resolutions, Jesús Machín on two occasions "refused to comply with his legal duty to offer the information required by the opposition."
After estimating the two claims made by the PSOE spokesperson, the Commissioner not only urged the mayor to deliver the information within a maximum period of 15 business days but also ordered Jesús Machín to send him a copy of the information sent to the Socialist Group, with proof of its delivery, "to verify compliance with said resolutions."
Likewise, the Commissioner recalled in his request that the mayor "has the legal obligation to deliver the information requested by the opposition," and that, "if he does not do so repeatedly, he would be committing a serious or very serious infraction."
The City Council "flaunts the failure in transparency"
The municipal spokesperson regrets that the Transparency Commissioner "has been forced to intervene due to the obstructionist attitude of the mayor, Jesús Machín, and his government team, by preventing him from adequately developing his supervisory work from the opposition."
Finally, the PSOE spokesperson regrets that, "with his obstructionist attitude," the City Council of Tinajo "flaunts the failure in transparency achieved in the last audited year with a poor score of 3.21 points." This low score is very far from the average score obtained by the rest of the public entities of the islands, which was 7.82 points.
"Tinajo is marked with a resounding failure due to the opaque practices of Jesús Machín and his government group," concludes Begoña Hernández.
