The government team of the Arrecife City Council -Socialist Party (PSC) and Party of Independents of Lanzarote (PIL)- approved this Monday in the extraordinary session of the plenary the recognition of an extra-budgetary debt of 6 million euros.
With the approval of the government team and the abstentions of the Popular Party (PP) and the Canarian Coalition (CC), Arrecife will allocate 3.4 million euros to the payment of invoices belonging to the previous legislature and 2.5 million euros to the pending settlement of 2007 with Urbaser, the company that performs the work of solid waste collection, street cleaning and the improvement of parks and gardens in the capital.
In this sense, from the presidency of the City Council they have carried out the proposal on the revision of the prices of the Urbaser company through the application of a "polynomial formula" and also facing the criticism of the opposition, especially those of Alternativa Ciudadana (AC-25M) and Partido Nacionalista de Lanzarote (PNL), who have expressed their refusal to "the constant waste of public funds" and who recalled that "the credit that the Corporation will contract with Banco Santander Hispano will have to be liquidated, with its respective interests, in 2011".
From the government group, the Councilor for Economy and Finance, José Miguel Rodríguez, wanted to clarify that in the agreement reached with the company "it is still necessary to calculate the average increase that will be applied as a price increase for Urbaser" during 2007, "which will be applied once the average increase in the sector between 2003 and 2007 is calculated", he indicated.
LACK OF INFORMATION AND CREDIT
"Among the supplier invoices there are some that were drawn up with non-existent contracts, such as janitorial services owed to Jesús Castellano or the amount of no less than one million euros owed to the company Ercansa", Andrés Barreto pointed out during the long plenary debate in which, as always, accusations and high tones have presided over the meeting.
"There are up to 13 invoices without signing either by the company itself or accredited by Intervention or Secretariat", he has requested corresponding contracts and has maintained the possibility that said awards to Ercansa had been given "by hand".
The opposition also criticized the high cost for the City Council's coffers of investments without any benefit for the municipality. And Barreto also wanted to talk about "economic inconsistencies such as when the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria was paid for the preparation of a Traffic Plan that does not exist or is not applied".
From CC, Luis Morales, justified his vote assuring that, "although most of the expense of the invoices belong to the past legislature, much of it has also been generated this year, with the new government".
From the government group, the mayor, Enrique Pérez Parrilla, and the Councilor for Economy and Finance, José Miguel Rodríguez, highlighted that in the review of the invoices they had detected up to 400,000 euros already paid or unjustified.
ACN Press