The mayor of Tinajo, Jesús Machín, responded this Thursday to the controversy over the "illegal" salary increases to three City Hall workers, and he did so by assuring that he has "a very clear conscience" and pointing to those involved (two officials and the previous secretary-auditor) as possible responsible for what happened.
"I have not authorized any salary increase nor have I signed it," the mayor declared on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero, one day after the Plenary agreed to open a file to request the reimbursement of those amounts, which had been charged since June 2012, without any plenary agreement or Mayoral decree authorizing these increases.
Months after this increase began to be applied, specifically in October 2012, one of the officials involved registered a document in the City Hall warning that she was receiving an increase that did not correspond to her. "While these two people and the auditor agreed, there was no problem. As soon as there was a problem of professional or personal confrontation between them, it was when the one who had been charging since June, warned in October that she was receiving money that did not correspond to her. While there was good understanding between them, they did it quietly," he stated.
"Some of those same people are accused, but the mayor has nothing to do with it," he insisted, referring to the procedure that has been open in the Courts for this cause for almost a year. "Curiously, between an official and the auditor there is a complaint raising a series of things and the Prosecutor's Office asked me for documentation," he recalled, referring to the request that the City Hall received at the beginning of this year. "That's why they are in court between them. Between them, not me," he stressed.
An email to the consultancy
To explain how a salary increase could be applied without even the mayor's knowledge, Machín referred to an "email" that, he said, was sent to the consultancy that prepares the payrolls by one of the officials who received the increase, saying that the secretary-auditor had ordered it.
"I don't want to say that they agreed, but the one who sends that email is a worker who has that increase and says that she does it by order of the secretary," the mayor stressed.
The current auditor also referred to that email in the report that was taken to the plenary session this Wednesday, and in which it is concluded that these salary increases were illegal. In her opinion, the official points out that the only thing that appears is "a photocopy" of that email "provided by the labor consultancy itself," and concludes that it has "no probative value whatsoever."
"It is a mere photocopy" and "does not form part of any file in the Secretary-Intervention," the report states, the content of which was revealed this Tuesday by La Voz.
More than a year to correct the situation
Regarding the main criticisms of the opposition, which reproaches him for having taken more than a year to act, despite the fact that he knew these facts at least since October 2012, the mayor has responded that it is "demagogy."
"I have explained it 20 times and they continue with the lie and the falsehood. They are playing demagogically, trying to do terrible damage to me," Machín responded. The mayor, who has acknowledged that the workers have been receiving the increase until this month, has justified the delay by appealing to the reports that had to be requested, to the period in which the Consistory was without a secretary-auditor and to the time it took the current official who occupies this position to prepare a new report.
Specifically, the mayor requested that report from the new secretary in April of this year and she delivered it in June, although it was not until this Wednesday, November 20, that it was taken to the plenary session. Now, in addition to finally eliminating that salary increase from the payrolls (which the officials themselves warned a year ago that they were charging), the file has also been initiated so that they return what they have been charged during this time.
"I have nothing to hide," the mayor insisted, making it clear that he has no intention of resigning, as the opposition has asked him to do. "They don't decide, the people decide, fortunately. And they have decided it mostly and they will surely decide it again mostly, because Tinajo knows what he has to choose and trusts me and what I am saying."
