In the last Plenary Meeting of the Almuñécar Town Council at the end of October, municipal-tax collection was debated and approved, as were other points discussed.

The lengthy debate was whether to continue to use the Provincial Council to run the collection of municipal taxes or go back to an independent, local tax office.

The PA under Sr. Benavides argued for the town to do the tax collection itself, as was the case when he was still the Mayor. He argued that other municipalities preferred and used this method, too.

The left-wing party, IU, were not only in favour of local tax collection, but of also returning municipal street cleaning to public hands, rather than private ones.

The Mayor with her majority coalition (PP + Mas Almuñécar + one independent councillor) carried the motion for the renewal of the provincial contract. The governing PP party said that by using the provincial services the town saved 200,000 euros. Furthermore, the Town Hall didn’t have the qualified staff nor the means and make good these deficiencies would mean higher municipal taxes.

Another item on the agenda was the approval of handing over the responsibility of street sign posting, etc, to a private company (Actividad Púbica Levante SL) with an annual budget of 1,187 euros under a 10-year lease.

This was approved, as was a motion concerning a renovation for the municipal-bus contract with a percentage saving for the municipal coffers.

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