The Mayor of Nerja’s party, the PP, seems to have a fatal attraction with court rooms because one of the municipal, contract awards is before the judge.
As soon as the PP recovered the Mayoralty they signed a deal worth half a million euros with the FCC refuse-disposal company, which raised a few eyebrows and pointed questions.
One of the independent councillors, José Garcia decided to take Mayor, José Alberto Armijo, and three other councillors to court: Gema García, Francisco Arce and Ángela Díaz, as well as the Municipal Secretary, María García.
The court action has already resulted in the contract being thrown out but Sr. García is pressing on with the court case to establish whether there was corruption & embezzlement involved in the contract assignation.
The one-month, refuse-collection contract was awarded to FCC in July last year worth 269,000 euros, despite the opposition from the municipal auditor because this figure well surpassed the amount permitted for supplies or services; i.e., 15,000 euros.
In the accusations case it states that the Mayor extended the contract a further one and a half months for the sum of 410,000 euros. Furthermore when then period concluded the contract was extended another 1.5 months, until the 15th of November worth another 366.000 euros.
“Therefore, the accused were not content with going ahead of awarding a municipal contract for services, going against all the rules, but they also proceded to extend the contract,” read the plaintiff’ case, calculating the total paid over to FCC as 1,046,358 euros.
The plaintiff also pointed out that by proceding in this manner it denied other companies the right to participate.
The PP-run Nerja, Town Council, on the other hand, says that they carried out the process in “an urgent manner for reasons of health,” claiming that the streets were filthy just as the summer was beginning, blaming the previous administration for the state of the streets.
(News: Nerja, Axarquia, Costa del Sol, Malaga, Andalucia)