Saturday, December 03, 2011

A legacy of problems

In an article published in the newspaper Laverdad, the mayor of Bigastro Charo Bañuls  says that the method of payment used by the previous council for the work on Avenida Apatel was illegal. The money was coming from the Government under the Feil Plan E scheme and so they should not have issued promissory notes.  The lady mayor explains that promissory notes are normally only used for transactions between individuals. From my understanding, the company involved, Pastor Medina were only paid 30% of the cost of the work.

The article goes on to say that one of the notes to Pastor Medina was signed on the 11th April due to be paid on the 11th May. In spite of the fact that the council would have received the money from the Government on the 5th May, no payment was made. The lady mayor says that this signals deceit on the part of the previous administration to the government ministry involved.

The current council are also in difficulty because the previous council left them with promissory notes to suppliers dated from June to December which amount to 1,527,187 Euros -again an amount which they say cannot legally be paid. 

I confess that my limited Spanish makes it difficult for me to understand completely the issues raised in the article. However, I get the impression from what I have read that none of this is good. Whether the present administration would have been able to act differently in the circumstances is a question that I am sure the previous mayor will ask. In fairness, the Socialists, who were in power, stood between a rock and a hard place.

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