According to the socialist opposition party in Caniles, not far from Baza, Granada, the Mayor has just given herself a 33% pay rise.

María del Pilar Vázquez (PA) goes from earning 19,800 euros (gross) a year to 26,450 euros, but she is not the only politician that has just had a surprising pay rise, because the Councillor for Urban Development in this small town of 5,000 inhabitants, Olivié Sánchez, was awarded a 43,70% increase, whilst PP councillor Vanesa Fernándo receives a ‘modest’ 17% increase; all this, according to the opposition, as the town is governed by a PP-PA coalition council.

The socialists also claim that they’re systematically being denied information to confirm this, but what is public knowledge is that the part of the 2013 budget that includes salaries has gone up from 71,778 euros to 88,182 euros.

The coalition has responded that when the socialists governed, their mayor received a higher salary, to which the socialists counter that the socialist mayoress was the only member of the governing body that did receive a salary, unlike the present governing council which has four of its six councillors, plus the mayor, drawing salaries.

Another point to be taken into account, in conjunction with this tactless pay rise, is that the budget for this year totals 3,607,309 euros, which is 2.03% less that last year. In other words, the town has less money, yet the governing politicians decided that they deserve pay rises at a time when over five million people are out of work, pensioners are being hammered and Education & Public Health are being stripped.

(News: Caniles, Altiplano, Granada, Andalucia)