The Rubbish Of Son Real

In the years that I have been writing about Mallorca there is one story which, when one takes all its component parts, accumulates into a vast volume of work which relates all you need to know about institutional incompetence and grandiosity, practical failure and political infighting. This is a story which has reached its denouement: the accumulation of rubbish found by a partially hidden hut. The location of the hut is the Son Real finca near Can Picafort. The accumulated rubbish is (now was, because it's been cleaned up) thousands of unused "green cards", promotional leaflets and DVDs.

The story of Son Real and the sub-plot that was the "tarjeta verde" is one that I have followed over the years. Partly, this is because the finca is quite near to me, but more importantly because it has been a story of quite staggering stupidity and ineptitude that has crossed over into the scandalous.

Where to start with this story? Let's start in the middle. September 2008. One evening in that month a number of government officials and businesspeople attended the official opening of the "interpretation centre" at Son Real. The grand fanfare for the opening included a statement as to expected numbers of visitors to the finca. 20,000 per annum, paying five euros a time. The work on the centre and other property on the finca had cost three million euros. This was on top of the over 17 million euros that the Balearic Government had paid for the finca in 2002 (when the story really started). At a rough estimate, it was going to take two hundred years for there to be a payback.

The investment was justifiable because of Son Real's importance, but it was an investment which was the first example of grandiosity. The finca was acquired with the help of funds raised by the eco-tax, a project therefore which was in keeping with the principle of the tax - environmental conservation with a tourist application. Six years later, it was evident that it had limited tourist application. The 20,000 per annum visitors would have also included local residents and school groups.

As a way of attracting tourists, the government of Jaume Matas, which scrapped the eco-tax in 2003, launched an alternative scheme. This was the green card. At a cost of ten euros, the card offered discounts, such as one for Son Real. When an audit of the card's performance was undertaken for 2008, it was found that the regional government had received the princely sum of 13,524 euros. The card was an unmitigated disaster (the practical failure) and was made more so because hoteliers couldn't be bothered selling it and even when they did, weren't handing over the cash. On top of this, no one had the faintest idea how many cards had actually been sold.

Matas and the then environment minister, Jaume Font, had launched the card in typically grandiose fashion, employing Michael Douglas and Claudia Schiffer. The card was to be operated by a body called the Fundación Balears Sostenible, a creation of the Matas administration which was linked to the tourism ministry and which also took on responsibility for managing certain sites - Son Real and Costa Nord. 

In June 2010, police raided the Costa Nord headquarters of this foundation. Its new director said that there was a "leak" of some three million euros in its accounts. He also said that he was surprised, on taking up his appointment, to find fifteen pallets of publicity and other material stashed away in a storage facility: the green card and accompanying leaflets. The foundation became just one element in anti-corruption investigations that related to the Matas government and to the tourism ministry in particular.

It is an assumption, but some of the material from those fifteen pallets may well have been what was found scattered around Son Real. Wherever it had come from and whoever had sanctioned it being stored at the finca, the fact is that the green card was quietly dropped at the end of 2012, while the foundation was absorbed by the tourism agency and its responsibility for Son Real transferred to a department within the environment ministry.

The green card, as I say, was a sub-plot in the whole Son Real story. How awfully appropriate, though, that its remains should be found as piles of rubbish on the finca, one which was supposed to have benefited from it. The truth is that Son Real has received no benefit and certainly not from political figures. The most ludicrous of the political scraps occurred when Jorge Campos, an arch anti-Catalanist, took over as director of the foundation and insisted on flying the Spanish flag at its entrance. The greatest failure, though, has been in the finca's management. The environment ministry is now meant to be managing it, but Santa Margalida town hall has consistently criticised it for its mismanagement. All that money, all that grandiosity and now all those unused green cards. What a terrible waste.

Summer's Off: Albufera's information centre

'Tis the season to be closed. A while ago we had the museum in Alcúdia shut because of lack of staff. The swimming pool in Puerto Pollensa you know about. And to add to this we also have the information centre in the Albufera nature park. It has in fact been closed since the beginning of June.

The "centro de interpretación", as opposed to the reception, which remains open, is intended to offer audiovisual information, posters and other material related to the flora and fauna of Albufera. It is also intended to allow visitors who have coughed up for the "tarjeta verde" (green card) the chance to hire bikes and binoculars. There have been, apparently, complaints from tourists who, card in hand, find neither an information centre nor a bike.

So why is it closed? Good question. It would seem that it's all the fault of the tourism ministry or maybe it's the fault of our old mates the Fundación Balears Sostenible which is meant to run the centre. This is the same foundation which, to the horror of the new director when he was installed, was found to have somehow managed to have "leaked" the minor matter of three million euros. It's not the fault of the environment ministry which blames the tourism ministry which in turn blames the foundation which in turn blames political reasons. And on and on we go. The environment ministry staffs the reception centre and wants to be allowed to run the information centre. Not to be left out, enviro watchdogs GOB have attacked the foundation for its management of the centre, which does rather suggest that the fault does indeed lie with them. (GOB, incidentally, is wanting something else closed - the power station in Alcúdia, but this is a whole other story.)

The foundation is not directly part of the tourism ministry, but it is linked and is meant to be being wrapped up into an über-agency. Its main purpose in life is operating the green card, something that is likely to be abandoned through lack of interest, except to a few saps in Playa de Muro who get one, only to find it's of no use. You may recall that the money the card was planned to raise has been singularly unforthcoming, partly because hotels have, allegedly, been pocketing it all.

What we seem to have here is a case of too many cooks unable to gather the ingredients to make a broth. Why does it appear to be so difficult? Albufera, and all aspects of its management, should be under one authority alone. But no. We get competing bodies who conspire to balls things up. It's a metaphor for much of Mallorcan public administration.

Underlying this is the fact that nature parks such as Albufera, bird-watching and wildlife are all supposed to be part of tourism diversification, especially in the north of the island. The tourism bods keep banging on about it, but they - and other agencies - can't even organise a look-up centre in a watery briery. So what chance, therefore, of any of this "new" tourism succeeding? Very little, if Albufera is anything to go by.


Weather
Meanwhile. Tenuous link, I suppose, but Albufera houses the local Alcúdia/Muro weather station. And weather has been a tad unusual this summer. Forget all the pony you may come across about excessive temperatures, as it is usually pony. The official take from the Met boys is that there have been no real heatwaves this summer and that the highest temperature - anywhere on the islands - has been 36. So no repeat of last year's 42.7 (Sa Pobla) or Albufera's high in July last year of 39.9. But it can still crank up again.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Chinese Take-Away

The glory that is corruption in Mallorca. The glory and the sheer stupidity. Gloriously stupid. The "Pasarela" operation into what the hell has been going on at IBATUR, the regional government's tourism promotion agency, has unearthed one of the more bizarre of all the questionable practices.

If you were to want to have translated the acronym IBATUR into Mandarin Chinese, how much do you reckon it would cost? Six letters, that's all, but let's be generous as Chinese "letters" are of course nothing like our own. There is generous, though, and there is generous. Would you say that six thousand euros was a fair payment? No, you probably wouldn't, and nor would the investigators say it was fair either. Which is why they are rather keen to understand why this amount was trousered by one Felip Ferré who just so happens to be a nephew of ... you might have guessed it ... disgraced former president, Jaume Matas, and who also happens to be implicated in yet another corruption case. The six grand was paid to him by the tourism ministry.

There are other strange questions arising from this investigation, such as one related to ten thousand euros paid to someone to come up with a study into the benefits of golf on the islands, a study that was compiled with information lifted straight from the internet. This may not be in the class of a dodgy dossier based on a PhD thesis, but it is equally stupid, as in did someone really believe that it might not be found out, like six grand for translating six letters might not be found out.

Then you have what was going on at the Fundación Balears Sostenible with its stupid green card, the "tarjeta verde". Let's be generous where this is concerned as well, and say that it was a highly altruistic means of providing discounts while at the same time promoting the natural glories of the islands. It was, however, really intended as a way of raising dosh, once the old eco-tax was kicked into the Mediterranean and drowned with the outcry that the tax had caused. How much do you reckon it raised? According to the audit for 2008, it brought in - to the Fundación, charged with its administration - the massive amount of 13,524 euros. It is believed that there has been a shortfall of some 400,000 euros, some of which can be explained, it is alleged, by the fact that hotels selling it have simply not handed over the money (and of course the hotels have been hounded for back-payment of the eco-tax during its shortlived and crazy existence). Set against the lack of revenue are the costs which have given rise to losses on the venture of over a million euros a year. In the hotels' defence, it is being said that the card had little success with tourists, which is probably true. At ten euros a pop, it may have seemed to offer benefits, but was just another example of how such a discounting approach doesn't work.

This may not necessarily indicate anything fraudulent - at the Fundación - but it smacks of inefficiency, to say the least. Which brings us to another question - that of pallets and pallets of publicity material on behalf of the Fundación which were stashed away in store and never used.

Corruption and inefficiency. Fraud and waste. Different they may be, but they are two sides of the same coin - the one that was spent and spent by an extravagant and uncontrolled public sector, especially the tourism ministry. One says "was", as one can but hope that this is no longer the case.

* Acknowledgement to "The Diario" for different reports that informed the above.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.