Tag: abuse

Latest Gran Canaria News, Views & Sunshine

Menas Case: Foundation Siglo XXI directors allegedly filed false invoices, unrealistic expenses and repeatedly drew funds from ATMs, meant for the care of migrant children, even charging botox facial treatments and posh restaurant bills to foundation debit cards

A comprehensive analysis conducted by Group I of the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) of the National Police yielded scandalous results, writes Spanish language daily Canarias7, regarding the alleged irregular use of the public funds intended for the care of unaccompanied minors, by the suspected to have been perpetrated by centres managed by the Foundation Social Response Siglo XXI on Gran Canaria and Lanzarote. In this case, driven by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, investigators discovered that the director of the Guiniguada centre charged the NGO responsible for €1,500 worth of beauty treatments and €1,113 for bills at top restaurants including Vinófilos, El Vasco de Vegueta, and Triciclo.

 
 

 

Centre-Right Pact Between Regionalists (CC) And Resident Conservatives (PPAV) Returns Marco Aurelio Perez As Southern Mayor

The conservative Partido Popular-Agrupación de Vecinos (PP-AV) and the right of centre regionalist Coalición Canaria (CC) have this Thursday signed a local government pact that will shape the future of the southern Gran Canaria tourism municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana. The alliance, dubbed a “Pact for Stability and Socioeconomic Progress of San Bartolomé Tirajana”, represents 60% of the votes cast in the municipality’s recent local elections, emphasised the  mayor-elect, Marco Aurelio Pérez (PP-AV), who returns for the third time to lead the local council responsible for some of the most important tourism areas on the island, including Maspalomas, Playa del Inglés and San Agustín.

 
 

 

Local Government Coalition Agreement Maspalomas and the South of Gran Canaria

A governing coalition pact has been finalised in San Bartolomé de Tirajana. The Popular Party–Agrupación de Vecinos (PP-AV) conservative residents party is to join forces with regionalist centre-right Coalición Canaria (CC) to govern the main tourist municipality on Gran Canaria for the next four years. Marco Aurelio Pérez will serve as mayor for the entire four-year term, and the Popular Party will take charge of Employment, Sports, Roads and Infrastructure, and Human Resources, among other areas. The regionalists, led by Alejandro Marichal, will oversee Urban Planning, Economy and Finance, and Tourism as their main departments.

 
 

 

Storm Óscar Latest: Government of the Canary Islands Declares Rain Alert for Western Islands and Gran Canaria

A storm system, dubbed Óscar, has formed over the last few days over the mid-north Atlantic, unusual for this time of year, and has led to concern from meteorologists and journalists as it passes south of the Azores, its tail should reach The Canary Islands, before the system heads northeast towards mainland Spain.  Advisory warnings have been issued in expectation of heavy rainfall, primarily in the Western Isles of the Canary Islands Archipelago, though some rainfall is also expected to reach Gran Canaria over the next couple of days.  It seems unlikely that any major consequences will stem from the bad weather, however these things can be unpredictable and so every precaution is taken to ensure people are informed and kept safe.

 
 

 

Foundation Investigated for Alleged Mismanagement of Public Funds Meant for Care of Unaccompanied Migrant Minors

The 7th Investigative Court of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has opened a preliminary investigation into the Social Response Foundation Siglo XXI and four of its directors. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office in Las Palmas filed a complaint against them, alleging crimes that could include forgery of commercial documents, mismanagement, and embezzlement of public funds. The investigation aims to determine whether this nonprofit organisation, and its officials, could have misused public funds intended for the care of unaccompanied migrant minors, during the migration crisis of 2020 that was precipitated by the pandemic confinement on the islands, leading to a build up of arrivals having to be assessed and cared for by the Canary Islands Regional Government, using hotels left empty due to the lack of tourism. The estimated amount involved in the alleged misuse stands at around €12.5 million between 2020 and 2022 on Gran Canaria alone.

 
 

 

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Federation of African Associations in the Canary Islands warn of likely increase in people trafficking

The Federation of African Associations in the Canary Islands has warned that arrivals of irregular immigrants to the Islands could be on the increase, which it considers to be a symptom of a diversion towards the Atlantic by those who seek to leave the African continent and find it increasingly difficult to do so via the Mediterranean. “We are seeing how cayucos [small, unseaworthy boats] have returned carrying 60, 80 and up to 100 people”, in what they see as a return to “the year 2006”, according to the secretary general, Teodoro Bondyale, who maintains that this fact shows that the route of entry to Europe through the archipelago is becoming active again, contrary to what local authorities say.
Bondyale went on to remark that “to say that there is no revival of immigration is denying the evidence,” warning that “in the Canary Islands we must be prepared” for a future increase in the irregular flow of Africans in precarious vessels that, in his opinion, could reach the significant numbers that were witnessed just over a decade ago. He insisted that proof of this is that, after several years in which only small boats with groups of a few dozen or less people have been arriving sporadically to the archipelago, last Thursday  a cayuco carrying 103 immigrants on board was rescued and a few weeks earlier, on October 17, another one in which 95 were travelling.
Bondyale attributed these arrivals to the circumstance that “people smugglers are opting to resort to other routes because the most used [route] of recent times have been closing, which was the Mediterranean route.”
Several factors have combined, such as increased control of waters and borders by the countries of destination, leading traffickers to try to find other ways to escape from Africa to Europe, but also “abuse” to which the black population is subjected, has increased especially in territories through which they must pass, as in the case of Libya.
The secretary general of the organization said that this territory has become the scene of “an unacceptable drama, the return to slavery practices of other centuries,” that the Federation of African Associations in the Canary Islands “wants to denounce, giving voice to victims without voice who are suffering, “said his representative.
International intervention
Theodore Bondyale stressed the purpose of his federation is to “protest and call for intervention by the African Union, the United Nations and international organisations for the defence of Human Rights” in a situation in which it considers that the institutions and European media “are maintaining an accomplices silence”. While reiterating his demand to act in aid of those who are victims of what happens in Libya, he stressed that Africans living in the Canaries believe it necessary to urge public authorities to take measures to face the potential increase that they predict.
Above all, Bondyale criticised the authorities for the inadequate treatment they understand is given to those who are detained once on land, which, he said, includes being “locked in inhumane conditions in detention centres such as Barranco Seco de Gran Canaria, where they live next to a police kennel and must endure the nauseating smell of a neighbouring sewage works. ” The situation is even worse in other parts of Spain in which the authorities “skip the Foreigner Act, like in Málaga, where immigrants who have recently arrived in Spain are being held in a prison that was not even opened yet” , He said.
Teodoro Bondyale Oko (Muni River, Equatorial Guinea, 1951). He has been in Spain for almost 50 years. He is a nurse, sociologist and graduate in Political Sciences, activist for democracy in his native country, Equatorial Guinea, secretary of the Federation of African Associations in the Canary Islands (FAAC) ( http: // federacion-aac. Blogspot.com.es / ) and member of the platform that questions the Spanish health policy towards immigrants. He taught classes in Health sociology for nurses at the Insular Hospital and at the Juan Carlos I Hospital, both in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

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