We received a communique from the local Asociación de Empresas de Construcción y Servicios Asociados to say the following:
The Association requested before the Mancomunidad and the Almuñécar Town Hall on several occasions that the work underway in Plaza de Madrid should be carried out by local firms. Instead, the contract went to a company from Padul.
The logic being that the money raised through water bills in Almuñécar and La Herradura for the improvement work should benefit not only the town’s infrastructure, but also local construction businesses.
The funds for the project total 14.6m euros.
The Chairman of the Association says that he has requested an audience with both the Chairman of the Mancomunidad and the Mayor of Almuñécar on numerous occasions. However, he has received no reply from the Mayor, whereas the Mancomunidad, he claims, have been stalling.
The communique was signed by Jesús Ruiz Cobos, as Presidente de la Asociación AECSALH.
In the meantime the PA (Benavides) says that the commencement of the work “at the gates of Summer” is prejudicial to local businesses, who have been collecting signatures to have the work stopped.
“Barely weeks before the summer season, when an influx of tourists is already evident, the Mayor could think of nothing better than to cut through traffic and pile huge amounts of construction material in the square,” reads the PA press note.
“The improvement work was approved in 2010 and now, with four year’s delay, they’ve chosen the worst time to start,” it added.
The other chief opposition party, the PSOE, also criticizes the time chosen to begin the work.
“They have annoyed business owners and residents of the square, Avenida de Andalucía and the Paseo del Altillo,” said local party Head, Francisco Prados.
He also criticized the fact that the workers employed on the project are outsiders: “With nearly 3,000 unemployed in the municipality, they gave the work to a temporary union of two companies (Aqualia and FCC), which subcontracted the work to the Padul company, Fedegra, who brought their own workers.”
Finally, he complained that nobody knew at first, due to a lack of information, how traffic was to reach the Paseo del Altillo, which is achieved by reversing the one-way street up the side of the paseo. However, it has proved impossible to get the municipal bus up there and the bus service has had to be rerouted.
The Chairman of the Mancomunidad, José García Fuentes (who is also the Vice-Mayor of Motril) has responded:
“The work is not just about substituting tarmac for cobblestones, nor is it a mere facelift for the area; the task is urgent and necessary because the water mains and sewage pipes ran close to each other and owing to deterioration one could contaminate the other, so it was a question of public health,” he explained.
On the subject of the work contract going to an outside company, he explained. ““Not the Mancomunidad nor the Town Hall participated in the awarding of the contract as it is the task of Aguas y Servicios and they put the job up for auction before ‘companies in the area.’ if no local companies meet the requirements for the task, then they logically have to look elsewhere.”
(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)