For those of you that are not familiar with the Caso Gürtel, it is probably the biggest political corruption scandal ever to rock Spain and is threatening to bring the Central Government down.

Locals are used to reading in the press about how the Bárcenas Papers is shredding the credibility of the conservative Central Government, whilst simultaneously reading about how the Regional Government is rolling under the body blows from the socialist corruption scandal over fraudulent bankruptcy handouts (ERE‘s), but these cases involve Madrid, Valencia and Sevilla – now, however, it might have landed in Motril.

One of the companies being investigated by a judge over the alleged financing of the Partido Popular was the one that won the contract to carry out the complete overhauling of Avenida de Salobreña, which was funded by the then socialist Central Government via the Plan E employment-stimulus grants.

The Plan E grants were a last ditched attempt, made by the previous government, to foster employment, ploughing millions in public funds into municipalities across the country, belonging to all political colours, for the purpose of local construction jobs, thus providing local employment. In the case of Motril, under the Carlos Rojas conservative Town Council, Motril received a grant of 4.5m euros for such projects, which it spent on completely changing Avenida de Salobreña.

The said building work was controversial, not only because it ground trade to a halt along this main thoroughfare for months, driving local businesses located there to desperation, whilst the construction work lasted, but also because many deemed the project at the time as unnecessary and “overkill.” Furthermore, the elimination of all the parking along the way was heavily criticised.

Now, the Motril branch of the Izquierda Unida party will call for an investigative commission to be set up, to look into whether the Carlos Rojas administration ‘illegally favoured’ a construction company that later turned out to be involved in the alleged illegal financing of the Partido Popular.

The Motril contract went to a temporary fusion between two construction companies (50/50), one of which was VIMAC. The name of the owner of the said company figures amongst those on the Bárcenas Papers (party accounting papers) as having donated 900,000 euros to the Partido Popular.

The Provincial spokesman for Izquierda Unida, Manuel Morales, pointed out that besides VIMAC being awarded this multi-million-euro, construction contract in Motril, the nephew of the company owner was none other than the regional treasurer of the Partido Popular at the time, which, in his opinion, heightens the level of suspicion upon the Avenida de Salobreña contract.

“Whilst the Central Government handed out grants to town halls to generate local employment, the Motril Town Hall took advantage of this money to give a construction contract worth millions to a direct family relation of the party Treasurer for Andalucia; a project that was unnecessary and containing irregularities, which puts into doubt how this contract was awarded,” denounced, Sr. Morales.

The Spokeswoman for the Motril branch of Izquierda Unida, Daniela Parqué, considers that the interest that the PP had to carry out the project “smelt fishy” from the start. She also claims that she was on the committee that was to award the contract, but that she had walked out in protest because she had felt that the correct criteria was not being followed.

Meanwhile, Carlos Rojas, who is now the party Spokesman in the Regional Parliament, is looking into taking the IU to court over their claims. He considers their accusations to be “ridiculous and irresponsible.”

He pointed out that under his mayoralty all contract awards were carried out in a “transparent and rigorous manner.” Never once, he said, did any company contest the bidding results and subsequent contract awarding, unlike cases when the PSOE and IU controlled the Town Council.

Finally, the Motril branch of the PP dared the IU took the affair before a judge if they felt that they had proof of any wrong doing.

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