Empty Shell: The Balearic Government

There I was, only a few days ago, praising Meliá Hotels for stepping into the breach and taking on the management of the benighted Palacio de Congresos when no one else seemed prepared to, and what goes and happens? The government and Palma town hall decide to put work on the Palacio on hold - again - and declare Meliá's submission void.

The explanation for this is that Meliá have not met conditions of the tender to manage the convention centre (which may have something to do with Meliá having planned to subcontract the centre but look after the hotel that comes with it). I stand by what I said about Meliá being a great company, but great is not a word that can be applied to the utter shambles that the Palacio has become. So what if Meliá wanted to subcontract, it was the only company willing to bid. Doesn't this tell its own story?

The first tender for the convention centre had to be withdrawn because there were no offers. The spin now is that there are interested parties, which allegedly there were first time round, but so interested are these interested parties that work has been stopped once more on this ridiculous project which has been dogged with problems ever since it was first conceived and yet another tender process will be undertaken. When? Who knows. No one in government, you would think.

The possibility exists of this half-finished project remaining half-finished and being a total eyesore on Palma's coast road. Don't bet against it remaining so for years. It runs up four million euros of debt per month, though Palma town hall intends opening up negotiations with the constructor to reduce this by at least one million in the hope that the building can actually be finished. We'll see.

The paralysing of the work comes at a bad time for the government. Its new tourism bill, one which that to succeed demands that the private sector, including Meliá no doubt, puts hands into deep pockets, is its flagship legislation. The Palacio de Congresos, all part of the shiny new tourism future, given that it is intended to attract  new meetings and conferences tourism, should be there on the flagship, but instead it seems destined for the lifeboats.

Economic hard times can be blamed for some of the problems surrounding the Palacio, but it was made clear that the original tender was too high. This was why there were no bidders. The second tender involved a reduction, yet Meliá was the only bidder. You can't help but feel that the lack of interest has as much to do with a  project possibly being ill-conceived as it does with tender conditions being too onerous.

The regional government has entered some rough seas. While it is being harangued for cuts that it has instituted, for which it had no real alternative, so the haranguing isn't totally justified, its other policies are causing it difficulty. The free selection of language in education has been a flop, its language policy as a whole is being attacked, and it is losing people. The health minister stood down two weeks ago, citing personal reasons, yet she had been presiding over an area of the biggest cuts. One gets the sense that here was an Estelle Morris, someone who couldn't really hack it.

The loss of José María Rodríguez as delegate from national government, caused by his resignation over old corruption allegations, is an embarrassment. The best that can be said about this is that his replacement, Teresa Palmer, is someone with a very strong tourism background. Not that this is necessary for the job, but anyone with such a background can only be of help to the region. Palmer's appointment also gets round a further embarrassment for the government, the fact that there were no women in its cabinet, once health minister Castro had resigned.

But now also there are other resignations, those from executive positions within the government. Both women. The government denies that either has resigned over its language policy, which can probably be translated as they have resigned as a consequence of this, or at least one of them.

To cap it all, there is to be an investigation of President Bauzá and the business affairs he hadn't declared. While these business interests really have no bearing on his position, the fact that he didn't declare them is a further embarrassment.

The Palacio de Congresos, still basically a shell, will sit there until or if new agreements can be reached on payments to the constructor and on its management. It is an unfortunate symbol for the government. There's a structure but there's nothing going on inside.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.