The Plenary of the Parliament of the Canary Islands has given the green light this Wednesday to the report of the investigation committee that attributes political responsibility for the health contracts signed during the pandemic to the former regional president, Ángel Víctor Torres, and to the top officials of the Canary Islands' health system in the last legislature, with the support of CC, PP, Vox, and AHI.
The PSOE, NC-bc, and ASG groups, partners in the previous Executive of the so-called 'Pacto de las Flores', have presented a dissenting vote against the report and, after defending their position, have left the hemicycle before the final discussion.
The president of the investigation committee and spokesperson for the Mixed Group, Raúl Acosta (AHI), has acknowledged the work of all the groups, the Chamber staff, and the security forces, highlighting that "the most important thing" about the work done is the formulation of proposals to strengthen the system in the future.
Acosta has defended the "neutrality and impartiality" with which he has exercised the presidency of the committee against attempts to "discredit" his role, and has insisted that "cracks" have been detected in public procurement during the health emergency. As a result, around twenty recommendations have been made, including the approval of a specific regulation to manage emergency procurement, with minimum requirements for justification, documentation, publicity, and objective criteria, as well as more rigorous traceability.
In this context, he stressed that "it is unacceptable that the Canary Islanders have paid millions of euros today and we do not know who brought a proposal or why someone was hired," while advocating for the reform of the regulations governing the functioning of investigation committees.
He has denounced the existence of a "legal wall" that, he said, hindered access to relevant information, and has emphasized that political responsibility for the management of emergency contracts fell on the regional government and cannot be "exclusively unloaded" onto technical staff.
Therefore, the report states that the main political responsibility corresponds to the Canary Islands Executive and that this is "especially intense" in the case of former president Ángel Víctor Torres, former director of the SCS, Antonio Olivera, and those responsible for the Ministry of Health, as specified by Acosta.
From ASG, Jesús Ramos has defended the dissenting vote and his opposition to the report, considering that the conclusions are based on "suspicions" and not on "proven facts", and has criticized that the Chamber has oriented itself to "construct narratives".
He has underlined the complexity of the scenario generated by covid-19 and the "fierce competition" between countries to obtain sanitary material, which forced the recourse to exceptional contracting formulas.
"We cannot analyze with the serenity of 2026 decisions that had to be made in a matter of hours during the most critical moments of a global pandemic," he pointed out.
Ramos has highlighted the action taken in the face of the first covid-19 contagion in La Gomera and the management of the quarantine in the Adeje hotel, insisting that the Canary Islands health system "responded" and guaranteed care for the citizens, something that, in his opinion, the report overlooks.
ASG defends that only one contract failed out of 1,400 files
The deputy has added that "a narrative cannot be constructed" from the circumstances of only three files --Megalab, RR7 and Soluciones de Gestión-- out of a total of 1,400 processed, and has specified that, in the case of the four million of RR7, the mechanisms to recover the money were activated.
For her part, Esther González (NC-bc) has assured that the report intends to "construct a narrative with previously pointed out culprits" and "blame" Torres, citing as an example the prominence given to the former Minister of Health, Teresa Cruz, who was only in charge of pandemic management for 14 days.
She has reproached the groups promoting the report for having "erased" the context of "enormous pressure" that public managers endured in the face of an "unknown virus" and has questioned that the recommendations focus on "more reports, more authorizations and more bureaucracy in emergency contracting".
González has denounced the "manipulation" that, in her opinion, it means to hold Torres and two former health ministers responsible for the failed contracts when the processing corresponded to the SCS, and has described as "unfair" to turn the "tragedy" of the pandemic into "political confrontation" and "a circus".
Fierro accuses CC and PP of "shady dealings" and defends management during the pandemic
Nira Fierro, president of the Socialist Group, has accused CC and PP of having created "the Torres case" in 2024 with "written conclusions, lies, and insinuations," marking "a thin line between politics and cronyism."
She has agreed with NC-bc in calling the commission a "circus" and has defended the Canary Islands Executive's management during the health crisis, recalling that the Canary Islands was the community with the lowest mortality rate, that all elderly people in residences were screened, that tests were implemented for visitors, and that no PSOE member is under investigation.
Fierro has rejected that there was "opacity" in the Government's actions and has branded references to Megalab contracts as an "invention," also emphasizing that the masks from Soluciones de Gestión arrived "in due time and form," thus rejecting the "intentional falsehoods" that, according to her, CC and PP have spread.
"What could be done and more was done under previously unknown conditions, in a complicated context," she stated, reproaching the deputies for, in her opinion, carrying the "weight of conscience" for resorting to the "dehumanization of politics, short memory, trivialization of truth, and the use of supposition."
The spokesperson for Vox, Nicasio Galván, has focused on Torres's relationship with companies linked to the 'Koldo case' and the "lack of judgment" in awarding contracts, and has stressed that the former president should have resigned when the audios against the former economic director of the SCS came to light --"I'm going to curse all the saints at the economic manager and either she fixes it or I'll throw her out the window"--.
"Torres should resign out of decency if he had any," he stated, emphasizing that the commission does indeed recognize the existence of political responsibilities.
From the PP, Fernando Enseñat has criticized that PSOE, NC-bc, and ASG "are hiding and not showing their faces" when the Supreme Court has already imposed prison sentences on the former Minister of Transport, José Luis Ábalos, and his advisor, Koldo García, and has stated as "certainty" that it was Torres, along with Antonio Olivera and Conrado Domínguez, who "opened the door" of the Canary Islands to the Soluciones de Gestión plot.
Enseñat has assured that there were contacts with the "corrupt plot" for "months and months," has censured the "outrage" of the contract with RR7, and has expressed his incomprehension at the absence of audits and Conrado Domínguez's continued leadership of the SCS.
He has accused Torres and Olivera of "lying" in parliament and has also called for their resignation for having "failed in honorability" and being, as he said, another piece of the corruption linked to "Sanchismo".
CC calls the RR7 contract "grotesque" and denounces favoritism
The CC deputy, Vidina Espino, has maintained that the Torres Government "favored" certain companies and "ignored the warnings of officials," and has rejected that the Canary Islands, with almost 20 million euros, was among the administrations that carried out the largest volume of contracting with a "criminal organization" convicted by the Supreme Court.
He has assured that the contracting with Soluciones de Gestión "was political" and had the "direct intervention" of Torres to accelerate payments, and has pointed out that, once the merchandise was received, "one out of every three masks was not useful," so the contract was modified to adapt it to the company's requirements, assuming a "detrimental overcost" for the public coffers.
Regarding the RR7 contract, she agreed with the Prosecutor's Office that it was "grotesque" and considered it "unbelievable" that the members of the Government maintained that they "knew nothing."
Espino recalled that the management committee lacked minutes and operated in an "opaque and uncontrolled" manner, and has rejected that the previous Executive tries to shift the responsibility for the contracts to the former economic director of the SCS, Ana María Pérez.