In the holds of merchant ships linking ports around the world with Las Palmas, a complex interplay of weights, losses and accounting balances takes place. A ruling by the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC), upholding a penalty against Graneros de Fuerteventura for irregularities in subsidies for grain transport, has exposed a bizarre bureaucratic paradox: how a technical failure to act by the regional administration’s own financial control department spared its parent company, Compañía Canaria de Piensos (Capisa), from the same fine.
The logistical adjustment of imported grain
The dispute stems from the supply of agricultural raw materials—primarily wheat and corn—covered by the Specific Supply Regime (REA), a key instrument of the Poseican program designed to reduce production costs in the European Union’s outermost regions.
During the sea voyage, dry bulk cargoes undergo changes in mass and moisture. Upon unloading, physical measurements at the dock consistently reveal discrepancies compared with the kilograms stated on the original commercial invoice. To offset this mismatch, importing companies sharing a shipment agreed to distribute the operational losses proportionally.
The General Comptroller’s investigation found that the companies applied for and collected public subsidies based on the gross volume initially measured at the vessel’s side, and later offset the losses through cross-invoicing among subsidiaries within the islands. This accounting arrangement meant that a portion of the subsidized grain was sold between companies belonging to the same group without the REA’s financial deduction being applied directly, in breach of the traceability requirements set out in European regulations.
The report that never arrived
After auditing the 2017 and 2018 financial years, the General Comptroller’s Office of the Autonomous Community concluded that this methodology amounted to an improper collection of funds and proposed opening sanctioning proceedings for a serious infringement. However, the proceedings against the group’s parent company took a completely unexpected turn.
Once proceedings were opened against Capisa, the company submitted its defense arguments. Regional regulations require the General Comptroller’s Office to issue a technical report assessing those arguments, a step legally classified as mandatory and decisive for a ruling to be issued. Although the investigating body requested the document properly and on time, the auditing authority allowed the three-month deadline to expire without drafting or adding it to the case file.
Without this essential technical evidence in the case file and with the deadlines about to expire, the Deputy Regional Ministry of the Economy was forced to apply the constitutional principle of in dubio pro reo (in favor of the party under investigation) and order the case closed, leaving the parent company free of sanctions.
Two standards for the same operation
The procedural paradox came to a head when the administration completed the proceedings opened against the subsidiary, Graneros de Fuerteventura, over the same practice involving grain losses. In this case, the General Comptroller’s Office did issue and add its technical report within the statutory deadlines.
The subsidiary challenged the €2,846.59 fine before the courts, alleging a breach of the principle of equality and a lack of reasoning because the identical case against its parent company had been closed. The TSJC has dismissed the appeal and upheld the fine. The ruling establishes that procedural errors or omissions by the administration do not create rights for the future and cannot be invoked as a free pass to perpetuate irregular situations.
The ruling ends the court dispute but highlights the fragility of the internal control mechanisms: a mere administrative delay ultimately neutralized the administration’s ability to sanction the flour-producing parent company, exposing weaknesses in the oversight of European funds in the archipelago.
The article Capisa: Grain losses at the Port of Las Palmas expose an unusual failure by the Finance Ministry was first published on canarymaritime.com.
