The island president of the Consell de Formentera, Llorenç Córdoba, gave a press conference this morning in which he referred to a situation of widespread corruption involving all political forces on the island: Partido Popular, Compromís, PSOE and Gent per Formentera. In the inner room of the Hotel Es Marès, Cordoba has given details of the “actions taken in the face of a series of alleged irregularities and possible crimes of which I have been a witness since my arrival at the presidency of this Consell” which, he says, “violate essential principles of legality and good governance”. All these documents have been delivered to the UCO of the Guardia Civil and the Prosecutor’s Office against corruption and organized crime, who must assess whether they constitute crimes. Without typifying them, Cordoba refers to crimes of bribery, embezzlement, prevarication and corruption.
Chiringuitos contest under suspicion
As La Voz de Ibiza revealed , the contest of the beach bars under suspicion of chiringuitos under suspicion is within the complaint filed by Cordoba. The island president has said on this point that “the most important issue is the contest of the beach service, the sunbeds, the kiosks, the sailing schools. Here what I have been able to verify is what I already knew about the kiosks, that with legal reports against the award, finally the Governing Board of sa Union, after practically kicking me out, approved it.” In addition, Cordoba has remarked that “what I was denouncing I was right because in the minutes that have been made this summer has been found that the kiosks were not complying”. One of the most serious points “so I was told by the Prosecutor’s Office, is that there is a change in the scoring criteria once the envelopes that were delivered by the bidders were opened, the technical envelope and the economic envelope. technical envelope and the economic envelope. It is a very serious matter and they gave it a lot of importance at the moment of investigating”, added Córdoba. The insular president denounced inconsistency in the scoring of the projects by stating that “sometimes they gave 15 points at one time and then another time they gave 20 points. These are things that do not have much logic and that make us very suspicious of this process”. He also said at the press conference that “in this process there were people with manifest incompatibility who have had to leave these decision-making bodies, but they had already participated in them. And many others who equally should have left and have not done so. There are reports from in-house lawyers that authorize the delivery of file documentation to the judge in order not to create defenselessness to the bidders, and then somewhere in the Consell it was decided not to do it, not to deliver that documentation. There are firm sentences that judges issued years ago, they informed the Consell and they still have not been resolved”.
Urban development irregularities
Cordoba has also reflected irregular situations in urban issues, although he said he could not advance more details. According to him, “there are approvals of licenses in a suspicious way in Government Boards where many people who normally are missing and that were made by urgency. This happened, I can give an example of when I was in Palma, in the Parliament: a Board of Government was made with an agenda where the first three secretaries were not there, there was not the regular auditor who normally is there, other politicians were also missing and an urban planning license was introduced that in principle is not urgent. It was not something that cannot wait a week and it was approved”. He also said that in the last legislature there were “changes of urbanistic figures also quite suspicious that should be checked”. And that “there are files that are processed at different speeds. There are people who have a file to make a house, for a local, and that seems to have the papers well, but then there are files that pass in front”.
Serra’s incompatibility
Another axis of the complaint that has been advanced by La Voz de Ibiza has to do with the incompatibility of the incompatibility of the councilor Javi Serra, president of Compromispresident of Compromís, who also has a 22.40% stake in the company Marina de Formentera. “I asked for an urgent report to Mr. Secretary and I have not yet been answered,” said Cordoba. Later in the press conference, he said that “all the consellers knew that he had this incompatibility, but he told us that he had solved it and I did not talk about it again until he himself confirmed it and stated it publicly“.
More complaints
In any case, Cordoba said that these three points denounced “are not all of them. There are some that if I were to mention them I might be giving away too many clues. and, as I am saying, what I do not want to do is to interfere in the investigation being carried out by the UCO of the Civil Guard, the Central Operational Unit and the Prosecutor’s Office against Corruption and organized crime”.
Presentation
Cordoba has personally met with the second lieutenant prosecutor of the Spanish Prosecutor’s Office to “answer numerous questions that he asked me, demonstrating everything with evidence”. According to what he said, the lieutenant prosecutor “personally confirmed that there were sufficient indications to open an investigation and recommended me to file a written complaint before his Special Prosecutor’s Office”. “The document delivered was a very complete file with a lot of information, for which I was advised by the Guardia Civil for several months since the end of 2023 and by the lieutenant prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office against Corruption and Organized Crime in Madrid since April of this year,” Cordoba said.
