JOSÉ ANTONIO GONZÁLEZ HERNÁNDEZ, AC-25M Councilor in the San Bartolomé City Council

"I could not understand that the PSOE had submitted to the tyranny of governing under the CC banner"

"Less than a month ago, Miguel Martín branded the PP gentlemen as irresponsible and disloyal, a month later these gentlemen are no longer irresponsible or disloyal"

July 6 2005 (22:45 WEST)
I couldn't understand the PSOE submitting to the tyranny of governing under the CC banner.
I couldn't understand the PSOE submitting to the tyranny of governing under the CC banner.

-Was what happened in San Bartolomé predictable?

-What is happening in San Bartolomé was predictable. Everything was predictable and absolutely everything continues to be predictable. The truth is that sometimes I don't understand the issues that arise in politics because perhaps some of us are far from this reality of bartering, of you get out so I can get in. Some of us are trying to ensure that citizens don't have to pay 200 million pesetas for private businesses and we are more immersed in those issues... Or, for example, a motion we made previously asking that while they had a minority, the powers of the Governing Board be transferred to the plenary session. It makes no sense. We are working and sometimes some things escape us, but what certainly doesn't escape us are some other things, such as the fact that Mr. Miguel Martín, less than a month ago, on June 2, 2005, branded the PP gentlemen as irresponsible and disloyal in a press release. A month later, or less than a month later, these gentlemen are no longer irresponsible and disloyal, or they continue to be, but Mr. Miguel is making a pact with them. I perfectly understand the position that the PSOE has maintained in San Bartolomé. I could not understand that the PSOE had submitted to the tyranny of governing under the CC banner, much less under the baton of Miguel Martín. And that is why I am happy to congratulate the PSOE colleagues for having withstood the pressure of having to enter a government at all costs that would sincerely have truncated the possibilities of the PSOE and the possibilities that in 2007 San Bartolomé will take a turn possibly through the PSOE itself and through a possible alliance of progressive forces in San Bartolomé.

-You are precisely talking about the motion you presented a few days ago in the San Bartolomé City Council in which you asked, among other things, that the purchase of an industrial warehouse be annulled.

-Yes, this is a motion that we presented a few days ago in the San Bartolomé City Council. You will remember that in November 2004 the City Council approved the purchase of an industrial warehouse in Vega de Yágamo, in the Karting area, on land that will cost the San Bartolomé City Council 200 million, 1,200,000 euros, whatever we want to call it. And well, we who have been seeing the file of that purchase, have detected very serious irregularities in that transaction and in the documentation of that sale, including some of a formal type such as the procedure of the purchase because it has been bought directly from a former partner of the mayor himself and it has not been duly justified as the law says that this is the warehouse that we need and the law provides for it. But in addition to that, we have found that declarations of new construction of the warehouse have been made after the purchase agreement, that this declaration of new construction has been made with documents that do not correspond to the industrial warehouse itself but are made with external documents and therefore in the declaration of new construction one could speak of having put the document falsifying documentation.

-Falsified?

-Not falsified but documentation that does not correspond has been provided and therefore one could speak of false documentation and what is also curious is that the person who makes the declaration of new construction does so for a value of 418,000 euros compared to the 1,200,000 for which it is going to be bought. That is to say, the one who values his own property, does so for a much lower amount than the one the City Council wants to buy. And when I talk about his own property, I do so with reservations because another of the things that is not clear to us is that the owner who claims to be the owner of the warehouse, really is. It must be remembered that this was a warehouse that was built in 1990, on land owned by a company called Charco Hondo, S.A., in which a company called Monte Mina, S.L., also had a stake, a company of which the mayor himself is the sole administrator, and in the end when that company was liquidated, the land was distributed among the partners, with Promociones Valpe, which is the one that sells the warehouse today, getting that land, but the warehouse was not in the inventory, that warehouse never appeared. It was built on land that was owned by the company, the company was dissolved and now the one who got the land says that the warehouse is his. But despite having requested it, we have never been able to see the building permit and in the face of all these irregularities and some more we have told him, adhering to the economic and financial recovery plan that was signed on May 21, 2004 in the City Council and approved, we have told him what the plan itself says in the sense that the corporation must assume the need to make a budget adjustment in the years 2004 and 2005 that allows it to face the final stretch of the legislature in a situation of economic and budgetary solvency and it says that special care must be taken with chapter six of investments because it is the cause of financial indebtedness, we ask him to comply. However, now, Mr. Miguel Martín, who is smarter than hunger, if you will allow me the expression, has decided to ask for a loan of 200 million pesetas for 10 years to pay for this warehouse, so if this finally happens, the San Bartolomé City Council will have a long-term debt of 2,000 million pesetas. If you also add to that that there are 500 and so many million more in the short term, we will establish the debt at 2,500 million pesetas. But also with a question that I think citizens should know and that is that Mr. Miguel Martín, as I say, very clever, asks for a loan of 200 million for 10 years but with two years of grace period. That means that Mr. Miguel Martín does not have to worry about paying during these next two years. From now until 2007 he does his job quietly and in 2007 those who have to govern will have to cope with the 200 million, in addition to the 2,500 that are already owed. They will have 2,500 million that those who come later will have to manage as debt. So for all this we have presented a motion in the City Council in which we tell them to annul the sale of this warehouse, to stop the request for this loan of 200 million pesetas and to rescind the purchase agreement signed with the company Promociones Valpe.

-You say that it has not been clarified at all whether compliance was given to the transfer of that 10% of useful land to the City Council.

-Of course. In 1989 when the license was granted... Let me explain because there are those who may say, well, but if he is saying that he does not have a license. Let's see, the Governing Board of the City Council granted the license but one thing is to grant it or award it and another thing is that the license is actually issued. You are granted the license but then you have to pay the license. If you don't pay it, you don't have a license until you pay it. That is why I say that it was granted but we are not clear that anyone paid the license and therefore we say that until it is shown to us, we have not seen the license. No one has shown it. At this point no one has shown the license for this warehouse. So we doubt that this license exists but in any case when the license was granted on January 13, 1989 it was done with certain conditions and the conditions among others were the elevations, the services that were not put and that 10% of land was for the City Council. Of course, we have been seeing that the company contributed a series of land, then they were distributed and there was no loss. That is, the same land that entered, left. So the 10% that had to be given to the City Council at least of the surface of the warehouse because if they were 2,000 and something meters, 200 and something would be from the City Council. Well, if that was not passed to the City Council, today we are buying land that is ours and not only the government group, but everyone has to realize that here there are manifest irregularities that at least advise to stop this purchase by the City Council until all the details of it are seen clearly.

-What do you think of all this?

-I'm telling you the truth and I don't care if it takes me to court, it smells very bad. Look, a company participated by the mayor himself, Mr. Miguel Martín, look at the initials, has a company called Monte Mina, S. L.. Miguel Martín, MM and Monte Mina, MM S.L., that is, Mr. Miguel Martín is the sole administrator of that company. That company forms another company, they acquire land. Then a year later they distribute it, in the middle of all that a warehouse is made, the warehouse is not known who it belongs to, today, 15 years later, the warehouse says that it belongs to the one who got the land but when the company was dissolved in July 1990, the warehouse was already finished but the dissolution of the company did not appear. That company declared losses. Man, what he had to have declared was profits because what he had had was an increase in assets. The warehouse had increased the assets. But if the warehouse belonged to the company that was dissolved, why did it not appear in the dissolution. Well, today the City Council recognizes that company's ownership of the land based on the dissolution of the company Charco Hondo, very well and how does it recognize the warehouse. Well, because this gentleman has gone to a notary and has said this warehouse is mine. Look, I tell the mayor that if I go to the notary tomorrow and take a document and the notary believes as it happened in this case that the City Council is mine, tomorrow I go and sell you the City Council. And that is more or less what this gentleman has done. That is, he is selling us a warehouse that he says is his because he says so but there is no paper that reliably demonstrates that this gentleman owns anything. Of the land, it may be but of the warehouse, no. And 10,000 meters of land in the jable area, tell me if they are worth 200 million pesetas.

-Protected area, right?

-It is that it is a protected area. Nothing can be done there. Nothing will be able to be done because the warehouse if it has a license, which has not been demonstrated and that they have deceived us like Chinese presenting us the mayor and the government group a document telling us that it was the license and the license was not such a license, but the communication of the secretary to the person who had requested the license telling him come and get it and pay. As long as you don't pay, you can't build. But then when the paper of the license has to appear, it does not appear and the paper with which he goes to the notary turns out to declare a work in the Vega de Yágamo with a building license for warehouses in Playa Honda. At the very least all this requires a study and a paralysis of this sale and above all that this loan of 200 million pesetas be stopped.

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