The present Almuñécar administration have released details of what appears to be unjustifiable expenses made by the previous Benavides administration, namely 1,800 euros spent on taxi rides to Madrid and back.

The first arguable abuse occurred in October of 2007 when the Mayor used a local taxi to go to Madrid, and then seven days later, got the same taxi to come up to Madrid and collect him – the round trip cost the municipal taxpayers 1,198.40 euros. This was followed in November the following year when the same taxi driver was hired to take the ex-Mayor to Madrid. This one-way trip cost another 590 euros.

Now the question raised is not why Sr Benavides required a taxi to go to madrid – we do not know what urgency might have justified it – but that in the seven days that separated his taxi trip up to Madrid in 2007 from his return journey in the same cab, why he could not have found some alternative arrangement. Surely a week was long enough to find something cheaper – a flight, for example?

Granted that these two incidents, separated by a year, occurred in a time of ‘opulence;’ at least in the case of the 2007 trip, but even so, it is difficult to see how these surprising expenses can be justified.

Lastly, it would be erroneous to believe that only one political formation in one town is guilty of such apparent excesses – if all the money that was squandered; and is still being squandered, were recuperated and placed back in public funds, many town halls would not find themselves in such desperate circumstances.

(News: Almuñécar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)