Almuñécar’s firemen are going to have to wait another three years before they will receive their first and long-awaited fire station, according to the opposition leader for the PSOE, Francisco Prados. Until then (2012), the municipal fire service will have to continue to operate from within the municipal cemetery’s grounds; the old sextants house, to be precise.
Sr. Prados arrived at this conclusion, basing his calculations on the Plan Económico that was prepared by the governing party, the CA, in which it states that the fire station will be finished in four years, counting 2009. He considers this to be another example of delay in essential infrastructure for Almuñécar and the Río Verde Valley (Jete, Otívar and Lentegí all depend on the Almuñécar fire service).
The recently approved budget sets aside 167, 028 euros (roughly 10% of the project total) for 2009, 501,081 euros for 2010, 608,113 euros for 2011 and finally 334,056 euros for 2012, representing the final 20%.
The PSOE leader considers this to be a tomadura de pelo (putting one over) as these four years will have to be added to the already-accumulated, five-year delay.
“The Mayor should assume responsibility in this affair, after promising to provide such an installation in 2003,” he said, adding that Almuñécar had already received two million euros from the Fire Service Consortium of Granada and that municipal land had already been earmarked for the project. In fact, since 2004, each year money has been assigned to the project, with a total of another two million euros and work has still not begun.