This year the Canary Islands Commissioner for Transparency has called for accountability on the transparency of the 2021 financial year to 3,658 entities: 413 public administrations and entities and 3,245 private organizations and companies -2,399 more than last year-. The latter received more than 60,000 euros per year from the Canary Islands Governmentof the seven councils and of the municipalities of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Santa Cruz de Tenerife and La Laguna.
The evaluation begins on May 31. They may first self-assess in the T-Canaria application of the Commissioner’s electronic headquarters and improve their information content if necessary; and subsequently give an account of its level of compliance in the 2021 financial year by presenting its transparency statement as established by transparency laws. East It is the broadest and most intense control exercise carried out to date in Spain. on compliance with transparency on public aid to private entities. Until now, no evaluation of this type had reached so many private and public subjects; supported by an objective mathematical algorithm, the results of which have never been questioned.
“It is about optimizing transparency not only about the Canary institutions but also about the growing number of private organizations that receive significant public aid of more than €60,000 per year. These private entities went from 706 in 2020 to 3,245 in 2021, which received 1,317 million euros, mainly for aid articulated against the effects of the covid pandemic. Increasingly, efficiency in the use of public resources depends more on private resources than on officials and transparency must reach everyone,” says the Canary Islands Transparency Commissioner, Daniel Cerdán.
Large Grant Recipients they must reflect their amount on their websites; the awarding administration and a description of the purpose and objectives or achievements of the grant or aid. In some cases, they will report on the specific subsidized project and its results. In the event of being a generic aid for the operation or maintenance of the entity due to problems or crises, such as covid or other emergencies, information will be offered on the activity of the organization itself that has been maintained over time due to the effects of public aid received.
The Canary Islands Transparency Commissioner is the body in charge of ensuring the transparency of the public sector and the private sector that receives public money in the Canary Islands. Since its inception, it has carried out annual evaluations of the transparency portals of all these entities through its telematic tool T-Canaria for the calculation of the Canary Islands Transparency Index (#ITCanarias).
The recipients of more than 60,000 euros per year in grants from the Government of the Canary Islands are obliged by the Transparency Law of the Canary Islands to account for the management of said resources on their web pages; so that both public powers and citizens have more knowledge and elements of control over how public funds are used through third parties. On the other hand, recipients of more than 100,000 euros by one or several administrations of the Canarian public sector are also subject to the transparency obligations of the State Transparency Law.
In addition, the obligation to publish the grants on the web extends not only to the year in which they were awarded, but also to the four calendar years following their award; which is why they continue to be summoned to be evaluated by the Commissioner for the following four years.
Of the private entities receiving public funds in 2021 called in this evaluation, 2,303 received them from the Government of the Canary Islands, with a total of 1,043,253,957.55 euros. Another 41 entities received grants from the larger councils or municipalities (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife) for a total of 47,944,120.96 euros. And 633 private entities received subsidies from both the Government of the Canary Islands and the councils or large municipalities with a total of 235,876,089.97 euros; 187,849,488.21 distributed by the Autonomous Community and 48,026,601.76 euros granted by the other administrations.
