A RECENT SIMILAR RESOLUTION FORCED FEDEX TO RETURN TWELVE MILLION EUROS FOR THE SAME CONCEPT.

The Provincial Association of Tomato Exporters and Growers (Vinegar) of Tenerife will have to return to the Public Treasury nearly eight million euros, of which six correspond to the subsidy for maritime and air transport to or from the islands of tomatoes and cucumbers corresponding to the year. 2002 This subsector received a total of 2003 and another two with late payment interest.

 

The association approached the Supreme Court to provisionally paralyze this payment order until a final ruling was issued., what has just been rejected. For this reason, Aceto is obliged to immediately disburse that money and only if in the end the Supreme Court agrees with him would he have the right to have it returned..

For the association, this measure represents “the death blow” to the sector and denounces that throughout the sanctioning process numerous irregularities have been revealed.. Among them, for example, that it has not been taken into account that the cost of this means of transport is greater than that of regular containers since they require refrigerated and custom-made vessels.

From ACETO they point out that the bulk of the operations have to be carried out in just six months and they can only resort in one 5% to regular services given the special characteristics of these products. But they also highlight that in the year 2002 They mobilized twice as much merchandise as at present, so the disbursement will have even more serious consequences for Tenerife farmers..

For this reason, they first requested the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) and to the Supreme Court later, to provisionally paralyze this payment until a final ruling was issued, which has been rejected in both instances. The president of Aceto criticizes “the enormous lack of knowledge” that the Government Delegation has shown by forcing them to return this money with the corresponding interest and points out that those responsible for the State in the Canary Islands never had any interest in accessing the invoices. “Here it has been assumed that transport to Rotterdam and the United Kingdom was not carried out as we have been doing for years and that the invoices were inflated, period”, indicates.

The consequences are even more serious if we take into account that many of the harvesters who operated in 2002 They don't do it anymore, with which the rest of the members of the group will have to assume these debts. The Supreme Court rejects Aceto's arguments in the sense that he faced difficulties in meeting the debts and sides with the public treasury by highlighting the serious effects that non-restitution of the amounts would have on it given their high amount..

The ruling of the Superior Court of Justice, also as the parties that represent those affected by this refund have advanced, will be appealed to the Supreme Court, a procedure that will have the legal support of the firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, entity to which the provincial organizations have entrusted the legal defense of the interests of Canarian exporters.

Let us remember that just a month ago, The TSJC confirmed an identical administrative resolution of the Government Delegation that obligated the Las Palmas Horticultural Federation, FEDEX, to return almost 12 million euros for this same reason. In that ruling it was pointed out that “The aid applications refer to expenses that have not been effectively paid and that include non-eligible items.”. The court is based on the report prepared by a technician from the Ministry of Public Works to conclude that “the cost of transport obtained as a subsidy is far from the real or market cost of eligible transport”.

Difficult crossroads.

One of the obstacles that is causing the most damage to the sector is the one that attacks the financial liquidity waterline.. The harsh cuts in the State Budgets that have been applied at least since 2012, have assumed that the compensation for the transportation of goods that is paid out of shipments of 2011 (with money from 2012) has only covered the 27% of the eligible sections, what it means 38 points less than the maximum threshold set by the royal decree, the 65% for 2011 and the 70% onwards.

To this is added another “hack” not having money from the complementary Posei. In the accounts of 2012 and those of 2013 of the Canary Islands and the State, There is no fund planned to pay for the expanded Posei measures, main means of receiving direct public support from Canarian tomato growers.

The only positive news is that tomato growers have four million obtained from the REA for fertilizers charged to 2012, but they are left without it 2011 and without much of this year's flow, for now.

And if that was not enough, We must add the competition from Morocco, which with the new EU agricultural pact makes Alawite exports easier and makes the sale of Canarian fruit more difficult..