The mayor of Arrecife, Ástrid Pérez, has signed an agreement this Thursday with Urbaser by which the City Council will pay more than 3.3 million euros to the company, as payment of a debt claimed for different invoices that were not paid since 2004.
Part of that period was investigated in the Unión case, in the piece derived from Operation Jable that is still awaiting trial, but Urbaser had also gone to court, in the contentious-administrative route, to claim different payments. In total, the City Council states that the unpaid invoices totaled 709,022.04 euros, although that amount has skyrocketed with interest, multiplying it almost fivefold. In fact, the City Council puts the default interest at 2,622,778.29 euros.
“The debt corresponds to unpaid invoices due to political neglect, and what this government group is doing is fulfilling the obligation to pay it off, due to firm sentences from the administrative disputes, also saving a lot of money for the citizens of Arrecife”, defends Ástrid Pérez, who has signed the extrajudicial agreement with Juan Ignacio García as representative of Urbaser.
According to the mayor, the agreement "extinguishes any debt contradicted by the Arrecife City Council with the cleaning company for the administrative disputes, and also means that the municipal coffers will save 161,034.07 euros in default interest."
“The mismanagement of the previous municipal governments is the cause of us having to face this debt today, the main amount of which is interest that has been accumulating at a rate of 675.95 euros for each day that the merchant has not been paid, after having firm judicial sentences”, adds the capital's first mayor.