The accidental secretary of the Tinajo City Council, after two months in office, pointed out that the corporation awarded an approximate amount of one and a half million euros "without a contract in force or through minor contracts." In addition, he recommended to the mayor Jesús Machín Tavío (Coalición Canaria) to "correct these deficiencies and irregularities" with an Action Plan.
Among the irregularities detected by the accidental secretary is the awarding of services or supplies of photocopies, telephone, energy or postal expenses of the municipality of Tinajo that are provided "without a contract in force", according to what he told the mayor in September of this year.
In this sense, the accidental secretary remarked that the maintenance of these contracts implies "a manifest violation of the principles of freedom of access to tenders, publicity and transparency of the procedures", as well as the principle of "non-discrimination and equal treatment between candidates." Therefore, he has recommended that the Tinajo City Council analyze the possibility of "submitting these contracts to public tender."
As a result of this report, the mayor of Tinajo announced that he would ask the Cabildo de Lanzarote for help to process certain contracting files. Thus, the nationalist mayor has assured that the contracts that required the most urgency were those of "supply and some repetitive services month by month such as telephone or electricity."
The socialist spokesperson in the Tinajo City Council, Begoña Hernández, appeared at the beginning of the week before the media to show this Resolution of the mayor of Tinajo, Jesús Machín, which she considered "demonstrates the irregular contracting practices that the Socialist Party has been repeatedly warning about." In this Resolution, Jesús Machín resolved to regularize the situation of the contracts of more than 40 services and supplies that are offered to the City Council.
Minor contracts in Tinajo
In this line and according to the Resolution of the Mayor's Office, the Tinajo City Council processed "throughout the year" as minor contracts different works, supplies and services that together exceed the amount of minor contracts. Thus, he has added that there are "several minor contracts in the name of the same person" and "several minor contracts with different people but with the same object."
The accidental secretary of Tinajo stressed that, according to the Law, "a contract may not be divided in order to reduce the amount thereof and thus evade the requirements of publicity or award." At the same time, he recommended submitting these contracts to public tender, because it would "favorably affect" the costs of the works.
Lack of a Purchasing Department
The accidental secretary of the Tinajo City Council reported that the corporation does not have a department in the area to manage "the proposals for expenses or minor contracts" since the Contracting department does not manage this type of contracts. According to what he has denounced, these contracts are managed through the intervention department and generates "a detriment to the functions of the intervention", but also to the control.
"Management actions are confused with control actions," said the accidental secretary of Tinajo
The "fixed cash advances"
In this same document, the accidental secretary has related that "the fixed cash advances", which according to the budget of Tinajo for 2023 the payments through this means should not exceed 200 euros. However, he has stated that "the majority of the invoices that are presented to justify them refer, in general, to specific expenses that attend to a specific service that is not current, fixed periodic and repetitive."
At this point, according to his exposition, the "usual practice is that any type of expense that does not exceed 200 euros is processed by fixed cash advance", regardless of its nature. This includes the purchase of supplies or the realization of works, but also the provision of paid professional services."
The accidental secretary reminded the Tinajo City Council that "fixed cash advances should be used exclusively for what is established in the regulations." Meanwhile, he has assured that the majority of these expenses that have been made by this system "should be processed with a proposal of expenses, or even some of them through the opportune contracting through the ordinary award procedures (open and restricted)."
Problems in Service contracts
In this same document, the problems detected in the contracting of Services of qualified personnel, through administrative contracts, were pointed out. According to what he explained, the Tinajo City Council has contracted, through minor contracts, legal or natural persons to perform services that could be performed by public employees and in others, performed by "a natural person repeatedly." In this sense, he stressed the possibility that these providers sue the corporation for labor reasons.
Thus, he recommended that service contracts be avoided, especially minor contracts, "that may be performing functions of their own or framed within the functions of public employees without due legal precautions and, likewise, avoid contracting that may derive from irregular actions in the matter of labor contracting."
Collaboration Agreements
On the other hand, the accidental secretary stated that the corporation of Tinajo processes as minor contracts and payments to be justified, "expenses that by their nature are Collaboration Agreements" with administrations or non-profit organizations. Therefore, he has asked that "they be processed by their specific regulation."
Minor contracts related to each other
To conclude, the aforementioned document has also exposed "the minor contracts related to each other without a common project." So that, individual expense proposals or minor contracts are processed "for the same activity, event or project without coordination between them." Which not only makes it difficult to control the municipal economy but also "the monitoring and control of the activity."