The Cabildo de Tenerife is going to invest 51.96 million euros in the works of the Motor Circuit in a period of four years: 4.27 million in 2023; 16.34 million in 2024; 16.34 million also in 2025 and 14.98 million in 2026. In at least three of these courses, the Tenerife corporation will allocate more money to this project than budgeted this year for research, innovation development (15.94 million euros), education (13.84 million) or housing and urban planning (10.59 million).
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The insular government, led by the socialist Pedro Martín, considers that this will respond to a “historic demand” from motorsport fans on the island, as stated in the report justification of the need and suitability of contracting the work, made public a few weeks ago and which only has two pages.
The opening of the adjudication procedure has revealed that social and environmental groups, such as the Telesforo Bravo Foundation and the Tenerife Friends of Nature Association (ATAN), questioned in writing the justification of the project from the social, environmental and even “from the democratic decision making.
The confrontation has reopened the debate on how public money is used, who should benefit or what is the general interest. Experts consulted by this newspaper recall, at the same time, that there are not enough mechanisms to evaluate the spending of the administrations or the effectiveness of the investments. Almost everything is reduced to the control exercised by the opposition or the rebellion of the citizenry.
“In these cases, the responsibility is not legal, but political. And it is only required through government appearances before representative bodies”, sums up Pablo Acosta Gallo, tenured professor in the Department of Public Law and Political Science at the Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC).
Professor Acosta, who is also part of the high-performance research group on Good Governance of Public and Private Institutions of the URJC, wrote in 2016 a article about what is the general interest and how the lack of definition of this concept has been behind large infrastructures in Spain that time has shown “capricious, useless and, what is worse, infinitely expensive”.
With the Motor Circuit, the Cabildo de Tenerife does not specifically allege “general interest”. But Acosta believes that any performance “assumes” that it does, even if it does not make it explicit. “It is an obligation imposed by the Constitution. A work can benefit some citizens more than others, but in no case can it favor the private interest of a citizen or company if the investment does not have a positive impact on the community”, adds the expert.
The reason why the insular corporation wants a high-speed track dates back more than three decades. According to one of the many documents of the initiative, members of the administration contacted the Tenerife Federation and the Spanish Automobile Federation in 1989 about “the possibility of building a permanent speed circuit on the island.” The meetings concluded in a “positive predisposition” and that such an installation would “undoubtedly” bring benefits to the economy of Tenerife.
Since then, both the island governments of the Canary Islands Coalition (CC), and now the PSOE and Ciudadanos, they have repeated the mantra that this is a “historic demand” of motor enthusiasts, based on the “tradition” and “organizational experience” of the same and that in this way they will be able to develop said activity “in a suitable place for it”.
This is summarized in the bidding reports for the work, which They don’t add anything else about it. nor do they delve into its financial viability, put in doubt even by the current adviser to the island corporation on this issue.
Canarias Ahora has tried to contact the Cabildo de Tenerife since Thursday April 13 to to know if there is any study that proves the “historical demand” mentioned or if it is really necessary to satisfy her. A questionnaire has also been sent to the Canarian Automobile Federation (FCA) in this regard. None of the organizations have responded.
For its part, the ATAN association has confirmed to this newsroom that it has filed an appeal against the approval of the project before the Contentious-Administrative Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The group’s spokesman, Eustaquio Villalba, asserts that the letter is based on the presumed expiration of the Environmental Impact Statement (DIA) and that a circuit of such magnitude is “unnecessary” for the island.
In addition, given the allegations made by the Telesforo Bravo Foundation, which question the suitability of the circuit from different points of view, including economic, social and transparency, the island corporation only responds to “those questions related to legality”. ignoring the rest of the issues, as stated in the final approval document of the project.
The lack of motivation in the processing of the initiative, the continuing protests and doubts about its viability relate the Tenerife Motor Circuit to other public spending plans on infrastructure that later ended in waste and concrete skeletons, as suggested by José León García, PhD in Human Geography from the University of La Laguna (ULL). .
“In the Canary Islands we have monuments to waste, to that joy of spending money and that it seems that it belongs to nobody, but in reality it belongs to everyone. Management as a whole should be held accountable for the investments it makes. And these works should have a certain consensus in the societies that are made”, points out the geographer.
García and other professional colleagues published in 2018 a balance on “the geography of waste” in Spain. The researchers analyzed works or projects of more than 10 million euros that had enormous cost overruns or have remained unusable tomes, such as the La Ballena Sports Complex or the Telde Palace of Culture, both in the Canary Islands.
The authors of the academic work reveal that, among other inquiries, they found “poor” economic reports justifying some investments, with “totally wrong projections and forecasts”, which gave the impression that the project “was the construction itself, the electoral returns and the mobilization of economic activity in the construction and equipment process”.
“We saw that the justifications were not rigorous. Or at least not enough to defend the need for what was intended to be built”, summarizes García. The Court of Accounts has described these investments as “erratic political decisions” and has also reproached the occasional community for works that “shouldn’t be done”such as the construction of a cultural center in Comillas, Cantabria.
Similar cases, yes, are widely spread in our country, according to a collection by Daniel Catalá Pérez, president of the Spanish Evaluation Society (SEE), an organization whose objective is “to contribute to the development of a culture of public policy evaluation as a fundamental instrument for improving effectiveness.”
“Any plan has associated risks that can generate cost overruns, delays in its execution or loss of benefits. Some of those risks are controllable and some are not. Their planning and management is fundamental and the assumption of responsibilities should be defined”, reasons Catalá.
The main problem, all the experts consulted agree, is that the institutions, especially local entities, do not have control mechanisms that ensure the correct use of public coffers.
Catalá recalls that the National Evaluation Office (ONE) has recently been created, which analyzes the “financial sustainability” of the contracts of the corporations that adhere to it. But in the office’s latest annual report, There is no evidence that Canarian administrations have requested their services.
The Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF) also issues reports on budget stability and infrastructure efficiency. However, they are not binding resolutions, so executives can turn a deaf ear when they do not agree, as is happening with the proposal to modify the 75% discount on air transportation for Canarian residents for a fixed subsidy. .
On the other hand, the Government of Spain approved last December the Sustainable Mobility Law to subject spending on highways, ports or airports to passing two efficiency reports. The draft only refers to “state” transport infrastructures, so all accountability falls back into the hands of city councils or councils when these are local.
For Juan Luis Jiménez, doctor in Economics and associate professor at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), this is already a difficulty per sebecause the consistories, as he says, just fatten their ranks with economic analysis technicians.
“These types of profiles are absolutely contrary to political decisions. That is the most important point. And I can cite an example: the Gran Canaria train. There was a study by the ULPGC that gave negative results [en cuanto a la rentabilidad socioeconómica de la inversión]. And the attack by the Cabildo de Gran Canaria was impressive”, points out Jiménez.
The final image reflects a country where waste is similar to a chronic disease that is almost impossible to remedy. “A project can be perfect at an accounting level, but financially disastrous. And therein lies the problem”, considers the economist.
“In Spain there is a poor culture of legality, a social tolerance higher than that of other countries further north in Europe towards this type of phenomenon. [el derroche]. There is also low confidence in the institutions and a widespread feeling that what belongs to everyone, public money, belongs to no one”, Pablo Acosta concludes.
