The officials of Costes stand up to the Government in defense of Ferrer

Maria Joaquina Ferrer is no longer the Director General of Costs and Littoral, but a good part of the team that worked with her does not seem willing to let her dismissal be read only in terms of a management crisis. Twenty-one officials from the agency have signed a letter addressed to the Minister of the Sea and the Water Cycle, Juan Manuel Lafuente, in which they express disagreement with the Government's decision and claim the way Ferrer has led the agency in recent months.

her dismissal be read only in terms of a management crisis. Twenty-one officials from the agency have signed a letter addressed to the Minister of the Sea and the Water Cycle, Juan Manuel Lafuente, in which they express disagreement with the Government's decision and claim the way Ferrer has led the agency in recent months.

Among the signatories are the head of the Department of Costs and Littoral and the heads of the Authorization, Sanctions, and Concessions services, in addition to 17 other officials. All of them explicitly defend Ferrer, but also the work of public employees who have processed the most controversial files. The message they convey is clear: the resolutions have been made in accordance with technical and legal reports and with the regulations, even if this did not coincide with what other administrations or interested parties expected.

The letter dedicates an important part to explaining what happened with the concessions of the beaches of Formentera, the conflict that has ended up precipitating Ferrer's departure. The officials assure that, when Costs had to process the authorizations, they found that the documentation submitted and the actions that could be authorized did not coincide with what the Consell de Formentera had already awarded.

They do not consider that this situation could become the criterion for resolving the files. The General Directorate, they maintain, had to decide based on the documentation of the file, the reports issued, and the applicable regulations. "It is difficult for a de facto situation created previously to become the determining criterion for the resolution that had to be adopted," they write.

The signatories explain, moreover, that subsequently the Legal Service agreed to the retroaction of the procedure, against the criterion that the same General Directorate had maintained. According to the letter, Costs considered that, due to the type of modifications proposed and in accordance with the applicable regulations, it was appropriate to submit a new application.

Discrepancies

The letter does not only speak about the Formentera conflict. The officials assure that during the last months there have been relevant discrepancies with other technical or legal criteria upheld by the General Directorate and that, in some cases, the competence to resolve was assumed by a higher body.

It is in this context that the signatories place Ferrer's role. "In these circumstances, the staff of the General Directorate has received the support of the director general in the exercise of their functions and in the application of the professional criteria they were responsible for upholding," they assure. They also highlight their knowledge of the internal workings of the Administration and consider that this has made it possible to consolidate "a cohesive, involved team conscious of the responsibility involved in managing and protecting the coastline" of the Balearic Islands.

The officials thus claim a way of working based on the application of technical and legal criteria, even if they do not lead "to the simplest solution" nor "to the one initially expected by all the actors involved." "We understand, however, that this is precisely the function that corresponds to a public administration subject to the principle of legality," they affirm.

A period of "hard work"

The signatories point out that during the period Ferrer has been in charge of Costes there has been a significant increase in staff and greater stability, in addition to an increase in the activity of the General Directorate and the number of processed and resolved files.

They also highlight that numerous matters of special difficulty have been addressed, some long-pending and others characterized by high legal, technical or institutional complexity.

"What we have experienced is a period of hard work, increased management capacity, resolution of especially complex cases, defense of the professional judgment of civil servants and support for those who had the responsibility to apply it," they point out in the final part of the letter.

Therefore, they consider it "just to publicly recognize the work carried out by the director general" and express disagreement with a decision that, according to them, puts an end to "a way of working" that employees of the General Directorate consider "rigorous, responsible and committed to the defense of the general interest".

Concern about the departure of officials

The letter also warns of the consequences that the dismissal may have beyond Ferrer's departure. The officials explain that they are concerned about the continuity of the work initiated and "the stability of a team that had achieved a high degree of involvement".

In particular, they consider it worrying the perception that situations like this can generate among public employees "called upon to uphold technical and legal criteria" when they do not coincide with the expectations existing around a certain file.

In this context, they explain that several managers from the General Directorate have decided to leave their positions. According to the signatories, this means "a loss of experience and knowledge in an especially complex administrative field".

The authors of the letter insist that they do not intend to substitute the political assessment that corresponds to the competent bodies or to make a judgment on the dismissal. What they want is "to record what we have directly experienced as public employees".

From recognition to dismissal

The defense that civil servants are now making comes less than four months after the same Government had publicly expressed "pride and satisfaction" for Ferrer's actions in the face of an attempted bribery. At the end of April, a businessman was arrested after trying to deliver 20,000 euros to the director general in a box of chocolates.

Ferrer reported the facts and notified the Police, who subsequently arrested the businessman. The Vice President of the Government, Antoni Costa, stated at the time that she had acted as "any civil servant or any public management position in the Government should act" and expressed satisfaction with the director general's actions.

In the same month, Ferrer explained to ARA Balears that the "idea of making private uses of the coast outside the norm" still persisted and defended the need to strengthen control, inspection, and the processing of files.

The Government dismissed Ferrer after less than a year at the head of the Directorate General of Coasts and Littoral, amid the crisis caused by the processing of concessions for the services of Formentera beach. Her replacement is the former mayor of Llucmajor, Joan Cristòfol Jaume Mulet.