The director general of the Civil Guard, María Gámez, will make an official visit tomorrow to various barracks in Gran Canaria, including Arucas and Teror, to find out about the situation of the different posts on the island. The Unified Association of Guards Civiles (AUGC) informed today that the presence of Gámez takes place when in the Archipelago only 30 of the 2,201 vacancies have been filled.
The association indicated in a statement that this lack of troops “is an affront to autonomy for being one of the most affected in the distribution”, lower than last year when 116 places were assigned, 64 in Las Palmas and 52 in Santa Cruz. from Tenerife. “Something similar happened in the previous movement of professional agents in March, where only 13 colleagues joined in Las Palmas and 9 in Tenerife, all of them from other parts of the peninsular geography,” the statement added.
AUGC stressed that there are main positions where there are not enough agents to provide a service 24 hours a day. “The population of the Archipelago increases considerably due to the visit of tourists, as in April, when more than a million people visited this territory. For this reason, the AUGC has been warning that vacancies must be filled and the catalog of personnel and material means, which has become obsolete for the security needs of the only outermost region that Spain has”.
The association pointed out that they do not expect the general director to announce an increase in the workforce at ports and airports during her visit. “We would be very delusional.” And they complained about the existing leaks in some barracks or the lack of their own shooting gallery for the Civil Guard, in addition to request an increase in SIVE stations and Maritime Service vessels to monitor the coast or increase the number of Air Service helicopters by one more, in addition to requesting that a plane be assigned “to protect the coasts and borders of Spain”.
