Velilla worksite

And now we move onto the two underground car parks under construction – or better said, not under construction. Undeniably, the new building company that had taken on the task to finish the San Cristóbal and Velilla car parks had been working away at a fair rate of knots (speed), but they too have had to discontinue work on the site because of a lack of funds, plunging any hope that these two communications arteries would be flowing by the summer, into the rubbish bin.
The target was, that by summer, both would be covered over, thus re-opening a two-way flow of traffic, even though work would be still going on below.
Now the businesses at both ends of town that are affected are at their wits end, fearing another summer of chaos and reduced trade – and who can blame them.
On the 23rd of July, 2006, the Mayor stated before the press that both sites would be finished and operationl before nine months were over… More importantly, he promised that these two projects would not become another ‘Altillo Affair;’ an open and inactive pit for several years. Then again, who envisaged in the summer of 2006 that two years later the world would be plunged into the worst global economical crisis since the Great Depression?
The problem is that the building developer for both projects cannot get the necessary credit from the banks to pay the construction company to finish the job.
Will the Velilla businesses – whose situation is worse than the San Cristóbal because they don’t have a return road running behind the beach road – survive yet another bleak summer? Where are the residents of the blocks there supposed to park? Will they even bother to come?
And the big question is: is it beyond reason to demand that the pits are just filled in with earth until such times as the economical climate improves, thus providing rough-and-ready parking and transit?

Los Arcos in Torrenueva

A group of house owners received the keys for their new homes only to find that they are literally homeless because large cracks have appeared and the buildings are unsafe – a ‘first,’ here in Andalucía, of course.
It was a joyous day, a little over a year ago, when they moved in, and now, although they can’t live in them, they still have to religiously pay their mortgage payments.
In the meantime, the insurance company, Mapfre and the building developers, Caribel, are juggling this ‘hot potato’ between them, as neither is willing to take responsibility for the reparation of the dwellings.
Antonio Campoy bought one of the larger houses in Los Arcos, which are in Torrrecuevas, in 2007. The house, together with its large garage cost him 289,000 euros, which he managed to finance through a mortgage that requires a monthly payment of 1,200 euros. Things started to go egg shape (wrong) around last Christmas when ‘numerous’ cracks appeared and quickly grew.
“When this happened, we immediately called the builders. A company inspector came around and chance would have it that whilst he was viewing the cracks in the garage, there was a loud crack and the house gave spontaneous birth to another snaking crack. The inspector promised to get right onto it, but the only thing that they have done is putting marks on the wall to see how fast they are growing.
However, a representative of the building company, José Carlos Bueno, has stated that the houses have to be pinned if they are to be stable and that it is no good simply cementing over the cracks.
Yet, there has never been any doubt about what has to be done, nor how much it will costs –around a million euros – but who should pay. The company representative says that the ten houses in Los Arcos are covered by an insurance policy, but he says that if Mapfre refuse to pay out, then they will have to take them to court. Could it be that there are cracks in the building because they were not built or designed correctly or even that the plot wasn’t suitable and therefore was erroneously approved by the competent municipal authorities? Whose fault would that be?
The dismayed owners, however, are in an impossible situation where they cannot afford to pay rent for alternative accommodation because they still have to pay their monthly mortgage repayments – most are now living with family or friends.

Peña Escrita

The PP (conservatives) are decrying the Mayor for the ‘exaggerated’ expense of the Peña Escrita mountain park. The PP was particularly incensed by the outlay in these last few months, which amounts to 480,000 euros and is part of a grant received from the Central Government to foster employment.
The PP calls this outlay “Outrageous,” adding, “In this time of crisis in which we find ourselves, we must use an order of priority where our resources are concerned, as there are an infinite number of families and businesses that have great difficulties in making ends meet, and therefore it is not acceptable that whilst this is going on, the Town Hall spends 80 million pesetas on Peña Escrita.” That is a direct quote, by the way, and not me who is using the Peseta.
Giving details of the money being spent on the park, the PP shows that 6,068 euros was spent on electrical installations in the lion’s cage. Another 16,000 euros was spent on man-hours and the hire of a JCB to unearth palm trees etc from Fuente Vaqueros (near Granada) and get them up to the park. There is another 30,618 euros spent on metal bars for the viewing area of the tiger cage.
In the Opinion of the PP the mountain park is becoming a bottomless pit into which money is being poured, whilst much more necessary projects in the township are standing still due to lack of funds.
Finally, the PP considers that this money should be spent by creating employment for the inhabitants of Almuñécar and La Herradura, instead of moving palm trees from one place to another.

Town Hall main entrance

The Mayor, Juan Carlos Benavides, declared a ‘suspension of payments,’ which is more often than not, a prelude to insolvency. This is a highly controversial announcement for the Town Hall to make. Many in the opposition feel, (as well as quite a few Almuñequeros in general), that coming after the huge financial outlay on the Referendum campaign, this is hard to swallow.
Much to the surprise of the opposition parties, the very next day after announcing the suspension of payments, which will affect the salaries of those that work in the Town Hall, the Mayor allegedly departed on a trip to Morocco, delegating mayoral responsibilities to Antonio Díaz.
The reactions have been many, and even a vote of no confidence has been suggested.
Basically, what has to be considered are two conflicting views:
A) That of the Mayor, who puts responsibility on the Junta de Andalucía (and by association, the local PSOE) for having initiated a lengthy legal process that will deny Almuñécar its now prime source of income.
B) That of the local PSOE, which considers that the suspension-of-payments announcement was just a publicity ruse to force the Junta into retracting their case and that the Mayor only has to desist in his allegedly illegal move to use private companies to collect the municipal taxes and sign up again with the provincial authorities.
As for the PP, they issued a statement in which they claimed that the reason that the Town Hall hasn’t got enough money to pay their salaries is because the Mayor had blown vast sums on the Referendum, amongst other things.
They also claimed that it was a foregone conclusion that the provincial authorities were not going to let Almuñécar collect their own taxes because they were using them to finance social services in other towns.
Finally, they claimed that the local PSOE is at the orders of Sevilla (Junta) in its ‘war against Almuñécar.’
Another voice, rattling around out there, is the IU (United Left) who considers that it’s obvious that there isn’t enough money to pay the salaries of the Town Hall personnel because the money is financing 20 over-paid political appointments that are bleeding the municipal coffers. They claim that the Mayor, himself, receives a salary that is far higher than other mayors that govern over even bigger townships, and that his wife gets a handsome salary (40,000 euros?) for a job that nobody actually sees. Their final broadside was that it is shameful that the Mayor should announce a lack of funds to pay the workers when the Town Hall has just approved a ‘million-odd’ budget for hyena cages in the mountain park, Peña Escrita, which neither benefits the town nor can be considered urgent.
So, the situation as it stands really leaves a couple of options open to the Mayor, if he wasn’t to collect the taxes from Almuñécar: use his own staff to do it or use another public body; but what he cannot use is the new arrangement using private companies. The provincial authorities have already informed the Almuñécar Town Hall that if they want to go back to using their services, nobody is going to make it hard for them by making conditions tougher. Does all this mean that you won’t have to pay your taxes? Yeah, right!
The fact is that Almuñécar is using the 2006 budget figures because new ones have not been approved. Furthermore, the last settlement of municipal accounts was in 2005 and the municipal debt even back then stood at 30 million euros. OK, just about every town hall has a debt and the provincial capital is no exception with one of 40 million, but then again, we’re talking about a city with a population of 300,000; not a seaside town of 25,000.
Finally – I hope – one last relevant point: when the provincial authorities collected Almuñécar’s taxes for them, the Town Hall habitually asked for advances – 35, all told, during 2008, adding up to 5,867,540 euros… now that tap has been firmly closed.

Francisco Prados

Trinidad Herrera

But the heads of the two opposition parties, Francisco Prados (PSOE) and Trinidad Herrera, both agree that the suspension-of-payments announcement was little more than a political strategy on behalf of the Mayor.
The cause of the suspension of payments, according to the Mayor, was the decision of a judge to suspend the new arrangement for municipal tax collection: it had been carried out by the provincial authorities in Granada (APAT) thanks to an agreement signed by both parties, which worked for around ten years. But in a Town Council Meeting it was announced that Almuñécar would be collecting its own taxes, using the services of private companies and had dispensed with the previous arrangement – a decision that caused a certain amount of speculation and controversy as to the reasons behind it.
The affair went before the judge after the Junta de Andalucía asked for the new arrangement to be annulled. The judge in question pointed out that the Municipal Secretary and Treasurer are public posts, which are entrusted with the accountability of the Town Hall; its incomings and outgoings. For that reason tax collection cannot be turned over to a private company (or a temporary union of companies, in Almuñécar’s case).
But it wasn’t only the Junta that denounced the new arrangement, but also the workers union CGT, which denounced the privatization of the system.
Going back further, to last summer, the Mayor warned the provincial tax-collection authorities that it would not extend the arrangement that was due to expire, if they did not reinstate the Head of the Almuñécar branch of the tax collection offices, who had failed his promotion exams that were needed to stay in office. The man in question is a member of the PP, by the way, which explains, why the PP backed the Mayor in breaking with Granada.
The ‘cause’ then is the freeze ordered by the law courts and the consequence is the suspension of payments. But there is a lot more to add, which I will have to continue in the Almuñécar section…