The institutional framework linking the public and business sectors in the Las Palmas docks is facing its deepest governance crisis
Oneport, the business association for the real economy of the port of Las Palmas and chaired by José Mayor, has formally filed its irrevocable withdrawal as a member of the Puertos de Las Palmas Foundation this Monday. The move, approved by its board of directors in the last week of June, comes as the body is being dismantled following a devastating internal audit report by Puertos del Estado.
Oneport’s patron exit comes ahead of an extraordinary board and assembly
The patron-led pullout was carried out on the eve of the extraordinary Board and Assembly meeting, where members of the body activated measures for dissolution and liquidation. Oneport’s business representatives chose to break away and terminate the stay agreement, marking clear distance from minutes under suspicion and a management model that state oversight has left severely wounded.
Institutional clash and management collapse
The departure by the business group is directly linked to serious legal disagreements that arose between the State’s Legal Service (Abogacía del Estado) and the Port Authority of Las Palmas. The frictions focus on irregularities detected in the foundation’s management and small contracts carried out during the last financial year. This oversight squeeze immediately triggered the abrupt resignation of the managing director, Betsabé Morales, whose controversial appointment had concentrated much of the State’s administrative objections.
The crisis has forced the board to commission a complementary legal report in order to liquidate the foundation or definitively privatize it under the 2013 Ministerial Order. Oneport’s walkout sharply weakens the business representation of an entity that, to date, functioned as the main arm for international promotion of the eastern docks.
Fiscal scrutiny and the end of smaller contracts
The foundation’s dismantling process will affect the port area’s ordinary commercial operations. The dissolution agreement includes the progressive termination of all the small contracts that ensured the organization’s day-to-day functioning. While the board expects to open an urgent selection process to place an interim technical director to manage the transition, the administrative structure is entering a phase of regulatory paralysis.
All case files, minutes and conclusions of the internal audit by Puertos del Estado will be sent to the General Territorial Audit Office (Intervención General Territorial) to determine responsibilities in contracting. Oneport’s withdrawal brings forward the end of the business group’s influence over the management of funds for port promotion, leaving the Atlantic hub’s economic balance under strict review by tax inspectors.
The outlet Canary Maritime first published this story under the headline “La economía real del puerto de Las Palmas abandona la Fundación Puertos de Las Palmas”.
