The compliance powder keg at Las Palmas Port: the ‘committee’ for ethical oversight is chaired by its director
In the fascinating world of public governance, few things convey as much institutional calm as an impeccably drafted Ethical Code. At the Port Authority of Las Palmas, that document from 2023—reviewed on two occasions over the past few years—amounts to a genuine work of art of modern compliance: it promises neutrality, weighs transparency, and guarantees confidential channels to eliminate any shadow of preferential treatment. However, in the corridors of the administrative building, a small operational detail has begun to circulate, lending the plot an unforgettable nuance. The Ethics Committee of the body simply does not formally exist. There is no designated person responsible for that area, and the functions are handled by its director, Francisco Trujillo, who apparently did not explain to the port president, Beatriz Calzada, the existence of a conflict of interest when a relative was added to a staff selection process—specifically, for the risk control area.
This Tuesday, behind-the-scenes at the port delivered the news with a mix of astonishment and nervous laughter. While the selection process to fill the post of Head of Internal Audit and Control continues—within the file of a relative of the port director himself, Francisco Trujillo, among the papers being reviewed—workers have discovered the best-kept secret in the house. The body tasked with ensuring that feelings and personal affinities do not interfere with institutional hiring is an ethereal entity, an administrative abstraction that has never been formally constituted with its corresponding minutes and official appointments.
In its place, the port operates with a kind of informal integrity body that, in a baroque display of pragmatism, is chaired by Trujillo himself. The design borders on brilliance in institutional engineering: the executive over whom the indirect shadow of a potential conflict of interest would fall due to his associate’s candidacy also leads the reading club where the question of whether the entity’s ethical rules were brushed against is debated. It is a self-control loop so perfect it leaves any outside auditor impressed.
Calm online, turmoil in the workforce
While the official version conveys the serenity of someone who has all documents in order, the atmosphere among workers at the Port Authority sits at levels of tension that are difficult to disguise. The workforce watches the internal control headship exercise with the uncomfortable feeling of witnessing normative sleight of hand. Who, after all, is an employee supposed to turn to to report an irregularity if the ethics mailbox ends up on a table presided over by the very person at the center of the controversy?
For civil servants and contract staff who must justify each invoice, each triennium, and each technical report under the constant threat of disciplinary warnings, learning that the supreme guardian of port virtue is a phantom entity led by the executive director himself is hard to digest. The unrest is tangible, and distrust in internal promotion processes has spread like oil on the quay.
The invention of self-regulation circulates
Section 9 of the entity’s Ethical Code stated solemnly that the Ethics Manager must guarantee the protection of complainants, resolve questions about conflicts of interest, and submit periodic reports to the Board of Directors to preserve the impartiality of the setting. The text sought to project to multinational maritime traffic operators and concessionaires an image of rigor comparable to European Union standards. Reality, however, has shown that La Luz’s compliance system resembles more a movie set: majestic when viewed from the front, but supported by two wooden slats when seen from the side.
The existence of an informal ethics committee that meets under the tutelage of the same direction it is supposed to oversee turns the architecture of good governance into a parody of itself. In the port’s administrative chessboard, the King not only plays the game: he also holds the role of referee and has the power to decide whether his own moves comply with the rules of the board. If the candidate for the post that must audit the house turns out to be a direct family member of the top executive, the response of the informal internal control body is guaranteed: harmony is absolute because no one will contradict themselves.
The political risk of governing with illusions
The state of heightened tension felt among the workforce is not only a workplace climate problem; it is a major reputational risk for an institution approaching a turbulent election year. With less than twelve months until the date for the regional elections, the top leadership of the Port Authority has been exposed to a crossfire in which the legal foundation of the contest for the Audit Head post wobbles at times. Any applicant excluded in the cut on 12 June—the stage where the Tribunal assessed merits of similar experience midway through the procedure—now has an argument to challenge the call in court: the real non-existence of the ethical arbitration bodies provided for in the bases.
The outcome of this administrative manners comedy will determine whether good-governance codes in Canary Islands institutions serve to guarantee free competition or whether they are simply a decorative brochure to dress up the website. For now, in the offices of the Port of Las Palmas, the committee that does not exist continues to watch in silence over the morality of everyone, showing that the best way to avoid ethical problems is to make sure the judge, the prosecutor, and the defendant share the same chair.
The entry The compliance powder keg at Las Palmas Port: the ‘committee’ for ethical oversight is chaired by its director was first published on canarymaritime.com.
