August 1996. Dimas Martín publicly acknowledges in a press conference that he traveled to Paris, with the consent of Juan Carlos Becerra, who was then the president of the Cabildo for the PIL, to negotiate the possible sale of ...
August 1996. Dimas Martín publicly acknowledges in a press conference that he traveled to Paris, with the consent of Juan Carlos Becerra, who was then the president of the Cabildo for the PIL, to negotiate the possible sale of "a part" of Inalsa. He also assures that Becerra himself was negotiating the privatization with another company, and that a meeting had even been held in Cuba. After that, the PIL never publicly spoke about this possibility again.
February 2011. Fabián Martín, Dimas' son and political heir, calls the media to present his great saving proposal for Inalsa, which consists of "allowing the entry of private capital." That is, exactly the same thing that his father had already been negotiating 15 years ago. And in the middle, what has happened? What has the PIL done in this decade and a half, considering that for most of the time it has had the Delegated Councilorship of Inalsa in its hands?
If since the 90s they intended to privatize the company, and now they come out to assure, as if it were a new approach, that this is the only way to save Inalsa, what should we think they have been doing during all this time in their management of the public company? Is it unreasonable to believe that they have deliberately led the company to the current situation?
The results are evident: deficient and obsolete infrastructures and a debt close to 40 million euros, which has led Inalsa to bankruptcy, forcing it to be judicially intervened. However, the PIL was not counting on the latter. In fact, it opposed tooth and nail almost two years ago, when it governed with the PSOE and its partner finally began to raise the need to go to a bankruptcy administration.
Now, a year and a half after the bankruptcy proceedings finally began, politicians are talking about Inalsa again. And the sad thing is that the trigger is in the request that the bankruptcy administrators have submitted to the Commercial Court. On the one hand, they ask that patrimonial responsibilities be demanded from the people who were part of the last two boards of directors of the company. On the other hand, they blame the current government group for the situation, for stopping measures that they consider necessary for the survival of the company, such as the increase in tariffs.
Some may find the request of the bankruptcy administrators unfair and even excessive. There may be doubts about whether it will prosper or not. It can even be feared that the righteous will pay for sinners, considering that Inalsa began to move towards bankruptcy long before, but only responsibilities can be purged for the two years prior to the entry of the bankruptcy proceedings. However, it is inevitable that many citizens celebrate that, for the first time, the possibility is raised that politicians have to respond for their management with their assets.
Just after the newspaper Canarias 7 made this information public, the president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, called a press conference to, for the first time, harshly attack the bankruptcy administrators, even suggesting that they could be incurring in a "dereliction of duties" and announcing that he is studying to ask them for responsibilities.
Of course, it is totally legitimate for politicians to continue talking about Inalsa. And also to oppose an excessive increase in tariffs, or any other initiative that they do not share. But what is hard to digest is that they do it right now, when the administrators have just pointed the accusing finger at them.
For a year and a half, absolutely nothing has been known through official channels of what is happening in Inalsa. Only specific information has been leaked, such as the staff reduction, the proposal to raise the price of water and even the salary increase that the bankruptcy administrators themselves assigned themselves. But in this time, not a single number. Not an explanation about whether the debt has been reduced, about whether the losses are being controlled.
Therefore, it is surprising that the Cabildo is now tearing its clothes, when until now it had supported the work of the bankruptcy administrators and had assured that it maintained a fluid communication with them. Have they suddenly stopped being good? Have they now realized that they are doing "dereliction of duties"?
Of course, it is almost impossible to judge the work of the bankruptcy administrators, because no explanation has been given about what they have done to date. But the Cabildo cannot forget that giving those explanations was its responsibility, and not the administrators. And it is that they, who must answer is before the Mercantile Court of Las Palmas. The citizens, the answers must be given by their public representatives, and they have not done so. And before that, there are only two options: either they have really not been interested in what was being done during this time, which would be a "dereliction of duties"; or they knew it and have hidden it from society, which now does not know which version to stay with.
In either case, it is clear that Inalsa has not been spared from one of its endemic problems: the secrecy that has surrounded its management. The one of those who did, the one of those who let do and the one of those who looked the other way, always with the eternal shadow of Dimas Martín, who pulled the strings when he was in the institutions and even when he was in jail serving his sentence.
Therefore, the great problem of the request of the bankruptcy administrators is that it will not allow to get to the bottom of the responsibilities, which began long before 2007. However, at least, it has already been an important warning for the future: taking a public company to bankruptcy may have consequences that not only have to be paid by the citizens, as always happens, but also by the politicians involved. It's already something.
The next thing will be that bankruptcy administrators and politicians really explain what is happening today with Inalsa and that, from now on, they give an account of each step they take. The problem and the fear is that, after fifteen years, perhaps Dimas Martín has gotten away with it, and it is already too late. Let's hope not.
