148
The most complicated and difficult challenge at every turn has been having
to deal with our political authorities. I have had to negotiate with twentyeight ministers, all the presidents of the Canarian Government, and an infinity of deputies, mayors, and councillors. To put it bluntly, being able to
liberate myself from this martyrdom has been a great blessing of my retirement.
In order to sell our ‘message’, we had to make frequent appearances in
the local, national, and international news media, a form of advertising that
was free of charge to the various administrations. The Director’s Support
Team (see Chap. 20) took charge of this. Thanks to all this, some politicians
have come to believe in ‘our products’, and funding has been forthcoming
for the activities of the IAC—never enough to fulfil the wishes of all, but
nevertheless a cause of envy at the University and other research centres in
the country, which consider us as in some way privileged. Such is the way
of the world.
Each year we have had to move heaven and earth to acquire a half-decent
budget. In other words, we had to badger the politicians and senior civil servants of the day in Madrid and the Canaries, pester them to the point of
tedium, and drive home our case with documents and more documents. We
also had simultaneously to look outside in order to supplement the meagre
sums apportioned to us by Parliament. It has been necessary at every turn to
acquire extra money to supplement the budget in the form of aid, projects of
every type, grants, etc. It is useful to know that for many years these extrabudgetary sums amounted to 50 per cent of expenditure. In spite of everything, we have never had sufficient funding to do all that we wanted to do;
instead, we have had to be content with doing what could be done. How we
thought with envy of those rich American philanthropists who have
bequeathed millions of dollars to research!
But a truly worrying concern today—even more, if it were possible, than
the funding shortages—is the continuing expansion of bureaucratic red tape
in Spain, which has created a mountain of difficulties for management, with
all its attendant unnecessary and suffocating administrative obstacles and hurdles. Many stories could be told of instances beyond belief where great opportunities involving millions of euros have been thrown away. This is not the
time or place to go into that. What is certainly true is that Spanish legislation
and administration, with its overlapping layers and duplications arising from
the division of jurisdictions among the state, autonomous communities,
councils, and local governments, including the town halls, constitute a costly
and oftentimes paralysingly inextricable tangle. Sadly, however many new
regulations are introduced, supposedly to stop corruption, the easier it seems
to become for the shameless to perpetrate fraud.
F. Sánchez
The most complicated and difficult challenge at every turn has been having
to deal with our political authorities. I have had to negotiate with twentyeight ministers, all the presidents of the Canarian Government, and an infinity of deputies, mayors, and councillors. To put it bluntly, being able to
liberate myself from this martyrdom has been a great blessing of my retirement.
In order to sell our ‘message’, we had to make frequent appearances in
the local, national, and international news media, a form of advertising that
was free of charge to the various administrations. The Director’s Support
Team (see Chap. 20) took charge of this. Thanks to all this, some politicians
have come to believe in ‘our products’, and funding has been forthcoming
for the activities of the IAC—never enough to fulfil the wishes of all, but
nevertheless a cause of envy at the University and other research centres in
the country, which consider us as in some way privileged. Such is the way
of the world.
Each year we have had to move heaven and earth to acquire a half-decent
budget. In other words, we had to badger the politicians and senior civil servants of the day in Madrid and the Canaries, pester them to the point of
tedium, and drive home our case with documents and more documents. We
also had simultaneously to look outside in order to supplement the meagre
sums apportioned to us by Parliament. It has been necessary at every turn to
acquire extra money to supplement the budget in the form of aid, projects of
every type, grants, etc. It is useful to know that for many years these extrabudgetary sums amounted to 50 per cent of expenditure. In spite of everything, we have never had sufficient funding to do all that we wanted to do;
instead, we have had to be content with doing what could be done. How we
thought with envy of those rich American philanthropists who have
bequeathed millions of dollars to research!
But a truly worrying concern today—even more, if it were possible, than
the funding shortages—is the continuing expansion of bureaucratic red tape
in Spain, which has created a mountain of difficulties for management, with
all its attendant unnecessary and suffocating administrative obstacles and hurdles. Many stories could be told of instances beyond belief where great opportunities involving millions of euros have been thrown away. This is not the
time or place to go into that. What is certainly true is that Spanish legislation
and administration, with its overlapping layers and duplications arising from
the division of jurisdictions among the state, autonomous communities,
councils, and local governments, including the town halls, constitute a costly
and oftentimes paralysingly inextricable tangle. Sadly, however many new
regulations are introduced, supposedly to stop corruption, the easier it seems
to become for the shameless to perpetrate fraud.
F. Sánchez