Santa Cruz de Tenerife, (EFE) which has denounced that there is a pact of silence on the part of the parties that support the executive.
At a press conference, José Miguel Barragán has indicated this Thursday that the Justice indicates that the Mediator case implies the creation of an organized criminal gang, in which members of the Canarian PSOE are involved, one of them the former general director of Livestock Taishet Fuentes.
In this case, the investigating court number 4 of Santa Cruz de Tenerife investigates, among others, Taishet Fuentes and the former national deputy, her uncle Juan Bernardo Fuentes, general director of Livestock before her nephew, for crimes of bribery, trafficking of influence, money laundering, falsification of documents and belonging to a criminal organization.
José Miguel Barragán has indicated that the starting point of this case is in the Ministry of Agriculture of the Government of the Canary Islands for a fraudulent use of European subsidies and inspections at the expense of Canarian farms at a “terribly delicate” moment for the primary sector .
“The presumption of innocence goes ahead, but things look bad, very bad,” said the spokesman for the Nationalist parliamentary group (CC-PNC-AHI), who added that last Tuesday his formation submitted a request for the appearance of the regional government to discuss the alleged irregularities in the management of European subsidies linked to food products.
Almost a week later, the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Alicia Vanoostende, requested to appear in plenary session and in parliamentary commission, where the Nationalist group has also presented a question, and before the end of this week will present a non-legal proposal for Parliament to pronounce itself, commented José Miguel Barragán.
The spokesman for the Nacionalista group has highlighted that something that has surprised is the “alliance” of silence of the parliamentary groups that support the regional government (PSOE, Podemos, ASG and Nueva Canarias), something that, he added, “portrays” this executive and its highest representative, Ángel Víctor Torres, who “has not been able to articulate sufficient control mechanisms for good administrative management, nor has he cleared up responsibilities”.
José Miguel Barragán has pointed out that “we don’t know anything” about the Ministry of Finance, which is the inspector of European aid.
He has asked where the PSOE and the Canary Islands government have condemned the alleged crimes or have assumed responsibilities, and has indicated that “only” there have been some “weak reactions on Twitter, facing the gallery, but nothing about public control” .
He recalled that Ángel Víctor Torres is the general secretary of the PSC-PSOE and the president of the Canary Islands, and “we have not even seen” that he has condemned these events, and has asked if this is the control and good management that “he will want to sell” in the next debate on the state of nationality, and the one that promises for the management of European funds for recovery.
José Miguel Barragán recalled that Taishet Fuentes was dismissed as general director of Livestock due to loss of confidence, but “did Ángel Víctor Torres know about his actions?”, asked the spokesman for the Nacionalista group, for whom “it is clear” that it was ” disastrous”.
He has stated that Ángel Víctor Torres must give “clear and immediate” answers about whether it was known that the former Director General of Livestock “was depleting resources”, if the judicial proceedings confirm this.
He has asked if there was a real loss of confidence and has opined that the conclusion has been reached that there was not, and he has stressed that Ángel Víctor Torres “allowed” Taishet Fuentes to be proposed as a PSOE candidate for the Mayor’s Office of Antigua (Fuerteventura), or , has asked “is that the general secretary of the PSOE does not know what is happening in his ranks?”.
Asked if he believes that the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Alicia Vanooestende, knew beforehand what happened, Barragán replied that “there is information published in a media outlet that refers to the fact that at one point the official who was in charge of the European subsidies was set aside by the General Director of Livestock”.
He has continued that, according to this journalistic information, “something that no one has refuted”, the official informed his superiors of the actions of the General Director of Livestock, therefore, in the opinion of José Miguel Barragán, “there is no doubt that some knowledge had” the president of the Canary Islands.
He has declared that “with what we are knowing judicially, if there is no action it would worry me even more”, and he has commented that he does not believe that this case affects other parties, although he is in favor of waiting for more information to be known about legal proceedings.
The criminal gang investigated by the court, for which twelve people have been arrested, would supposedly be led in the political sphere by former PSOE deputy Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo, and in the business sphere by former Civil Guard general Francisco Espinosa Navas.
The name of the case comes from the person who supposedly acted as a mediator, Marco Antonio Navarro Tacoronte. EFE