Members of the board of Puertos de Las Palmas have a problem. The Comptroller General of the State Administration (IGAE) has issued an audit report on the accounts that validates point by point the information Canarymaritime revealed exclusively last May. The document, already published, confirms that the Port Authority of Las Palmas has serious distortions in its balance sheet due to the management of five major concessions. The audit has issued a qualified opinion that sheds light on how the incorrect application of tax incentives and unrecorded works keeps public assets hidden, at nearly €14 million. The IGAE does not say who those who do not pay are.
The source of the anomaly lies in how private investments are handled on the port public domain. Five companies holding concessions have carried out dredging works that include backfilling in the water area, the construction of wharves, piers, dukes of alba and other berthing and mooring infrastructure. The Port Authority offsets these private investments by applying tax bonifications to the surface rates for land and water areas originally assigned.
A balance sheet that hides the reality of the docks
The seriousness of the reservation identified by state auditors lies in the accounting concealment of these moves. The Port Authority of Las Palmas collects and settles fees based on assets that do not appear in its official balance sheet, in flagrant breach of the asset recognition criteria of the General Accounting Plan. At the same time, the port body reduced fee income because the works were funded by the private companies, but without recording the corresponding rights and obligations in its accounting.
The financial impact of this accounting distortion undermines the true picture of the solvency of the public entity: the port’s official balance sheet hides assets worth €13.97 million, the accounts from prior periods are misaligned by €2.91 million, and the reported annual earnings are understated by €451,000. A total of €10.15 million should be recorded as liabilities so they can be progressively transferred to results during the bonified concession period.
IGAE technicians stress that these record-keeping deficiencies are neither an isolated nor exceptional occurrence. The report warns that similar accounting omissions were already flagged in audits of previous financial years, showing a systemic resistance by port management to correct the valuation of its balance sheet and to subject the tax privileges granted to major terminal operators to strict oversight.
The mystery of tax credits
State Treasury oversight also casts doubt on the port’s tax policy transparency. The report describes as “insufficient” the information provided by the Port Authority in the annual report on the activation of tax credits from pending deductions to be applied in Corporate Income Tax. The entity has avoided detailing the nature of the evidence used to justify that accounting recognition and has also refrained from presenting the tax planning required under current regulations for the public sector.
This lack of technical justification for the tax advantages the corporation benefits from had already been criticized by State auditors in earlier inspections. Persisting in not providing the mandatory tax viability plan prevents verification of whether activating these tax credits reflects a real expectation of generating revenue or whether it is a fictitious accounting entry to balance the profit and loss statement.
The Intervención General’s assessment weakens the port presidency’s position with the Ministry of Finance at a time of intense debate over the efficiency of the Canary Islands’ port system. The accounting reservations point to structural failings in the custody of public resources and increase suspicions of lax oversight of large multinational firms that exploit the land and waters of Las Palmas under exceptional bonification regimes.
The story Hacienda confirma la exclusiva de Canarymaritime: 5 concesionarios tienen amnistía por valor de 14 millones en el Puerto de Las Palmas was first published on canarymaritime.com.
