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Spain – Tenerife Councillor denounces irregularities in casino contracts

By - 29 March 2017

A local councillor in Tenerife has made a number of allegations surrounding the company which runs restaurants and bars at the three publically owned casinos on the island.

Julio Concepción member of political party Podemos has asked the President of the Council for the three publically owned casinos on the island to look into the contract saying that the company which has the concession to run catering and bar services “performs a deplorable and lamentable” service. According to Mr. Concepción, an investigation into the matter has already revealed “payments in undeclared money, unpaid salaries breaches in contracts and poor working conditions for the staff.”

Concepción told press that once he had been informed of the irregularities by local staff a year ago he began to request information regarding the concession holder. The Council of Insular Government briefly responded to the request and that after much insistence on his part it revealed that the contract had been subrogated meaning that the contract of services had been carried out for “decades and has never been put out to public tender.

“Once again, we find that the audits that supposedly supervise the operation of island companies like this do not detect serious irregularities,” Mr. Concepción said.

The news comes at a time when the government is trying to privatise the industry. In November last year the President of the Council of Tenerife Carlos Alonso, said that the appraisal report on the value of the three existing casinos on the island would soon be made public in order to proceed with their sale. Resources generated by the privatised casinos would be used to help fund social welfare programs on the island. However, it has been a long running and increasingly acrimonious issue.

In 2014 it was announced that the casinos in Tenerife were to be privatised with then newly elected President Carlos Alonso saying that he also supported plans to open casinos in hotels. The government planned to sell shares in the casinos in Puerto de la Cruz, Santa Cruz and Playa de las Americas at some point later in 2014 after it was reported that only the Casino Playa de Las Americas posted profits in 2013. Proposals put forward in 2014 would also see casino expansion in other hotels throughout Tenerife. However, unions and many officials have been against the move from the beginning and have delayed the process.

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