The agreement adopted unanimously in June 2014 by the Assembly of Trustees of the Foundation Ports of Las Palmas to initiate the ‘loss of the status of a State Public Sector foundation’ has ceased to be a mere administrative procedure frozen in the ministries. Twelve years later, the operational persistence of this entity, sustained by the influence of business lobbies in the port sector, places its administrators before a scenario of de facto nullity that jeopardizes the validity of the contracts and grants acquired in the current regulatory campaign. A meeting is scheduled for this Friday without approved accounts.
The successive financial reports have systematically uncovered the vulnerability of the corporate framework of the institution. The warnings from the external audit of 2025 emphasize that the file to disassociate the entity from the State’s General Budgets remains unresolved by the State Administration. This paralysis of over a decade has consolidated an unsustainable commercial anomaly. The foundation participates in public tenders and territorial cooperation calls such as Interreg programs simulating the status of an instrumental arm of the public sector, while internally it drags an unwavering mandate from its own trustees to extinguish this legal status.
The OLAF eligibility examination threatens the acquisition of subsidies
The mismatch between the registrarial reality and the acquisition activity places the governing body of the foundation in the line of fire of European Union inspectors. The allocation bases of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) require a principle of absolute transparency regarding the legal capacity of the applicant. The completion of the responsible declarations of ‘full compliance’ in the registration forms, deliberately omitting the compulsory restructuring plan reflected in the BOE in 2013, fits directly into the assumptions of concealing relevant information pursued by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).
The community guidelines regarding beneficiary eligibility operate as a substantive requirement whose violation contaminates all capital transfers received. The use of an inert structure in the latent process of state disconnection to act as a recipient of cohesion funds exposes the Gran Canaria port system to total reimbursement files for fraud of law. Previous investigations by OLAF into associative shells in the industrial fabric demonstrate that Brussels executes immediate retrospective financial corrections when it is found that the recipient lacks the workforce and legal viability required in co-financing agreements.
Conflict of interest in the presidency of the administrative zombie
The position of the presidency of the Port Authority of Las Palmas, which simultaneously holds the top direction of the foundation, adds an institutional friction that violates good governance codes. This duality of functions generates an insurmountable regulatory contradiction in the management of port assets. The legal mandate of the State representative requires an orderly liquidation, the collection of debts from the transfer of the institutional building, and the cessation of inefficient budget flows, an obligation that collides with the Board’s strategy to keep alive the social agenda of an entity without legitimate administrative support.
The inaction of port managers in the face of the binding agreement of 2014 does not dilute the responsibility of the signatories of public aid requests. The continued institutional disobedience does not generate consolidation rights nor exempts the Board from the civil and criminal consequences derived from misleading the managing administrations of the ERDF. With the directives from Ports of the State demanding compliance with the original mandate of privatization or liquidation, the executive leadership lacks technical maneuvering room. Any disbursement or ancillary tender executed under the current legal limbo lacks legal coverage, forcing immediate auditing of accounts due to the risk of financial collapse.
