The Almuñécar Town Hall will have to return 11,200 euros to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, plus interest, having failed to justify where it was spent.

Almuñécar received the grant from the said ministry in 2008, which was to be spent on a cultural project entitled Damascus: Capital Árabe de la Cultura 2008. The previous Town Council under Juan Carlos Benavides had requested the said grant.

The Ministry, says the governing party’s Spokesman, Juan José Ruiz Joya, discovered a “multitude of deficiencies and defects in the justification for the grant and because of the impossibility of sorting out these problems, decided that the money had to be returned.”

Of the mentioned defiencies and defects, Sr. Ruiz gives as an example the lack of justification for an expense of 7,369 euros. In its place, he says, there was a bill from Mansour-Al-Natour, consisting of the following: transport, food & accommodation for the Almuñécar delegation, and the ‘development of the exhibition.’ However, that which refers to food, accommodation & transport does not specify how many people it covers or the number of days it covers.

More importantly, the majority of justifications given do not comply with requirements for said official justifications. This second point accounts for the 4,584 euros that make up the 11,200 mentioned above.

But the bottom line is, the town coffers will have to give back just over 11,000 euros, so prepare for tighter parking and road-usage fines!

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