Just when public spending cuts are biting the most, when members of the public are being asked to make sacrifices for the good of the national economy, we hear of three conservative councillors that have been running up bills of up to 500 euros a month on erotic phone lines, etc, on the official town-hall mobile phones. Oh, and one of them also used his phone to make eternally-long phone calls to his girlfriend, bless him.

One of the opposition parties back in September at the Torrevieja Town Hall uncovered what had been going on when he asked for and examined official, phone-call records. Despite this revelation the three councillors have continued at their posts with the Mayor apparently looking the other way. In fact, the ruling conservative party there has refused to take part in an extraordinary plenary meeting of the Town Council to debate the matter: “There will be no debate, as far as we are concerned,” said the Mayor, Eduardo Dolón.

Incredibly, according to the socialist opposition Spokesperson, Fanny Serrano, the Mayor has sought to justify this lamentable practice by saying that the said councillors work all day long and are not going to carry two mobile telephones around with them. The Spokeswoman’s first name could be considered ‘unfortunate’ given the the nature of the circumstances, some readers might feel.

As mentioned, each one of these gentlemen has knocked up 500 euros a month each with Daniel Plaza, the Councillor for Sports, for example, having made ’49 contacts’ with a prostitution phone service, all paid for by the taxpayer. At least seven municipal phone lines have pornography contracts taken out on them, but thanks to the blocking action of the Mayor, the names of the ‘subscribers’ have not been made public.

One wonders whether the name of the Mayor is amongst them?

(News: Torrevieja, Spain)