New figures show that Jimena owes €17,000

(Photo: TioJimeno)

JIMENA (Europa Sur) The special plenary session held on Tuesday evening to debate Jimena's debt revealed that the new PP government, headed by Guillermo Ruiz, calculates that we owe €17,170,054.32 - some €1,700 per head of population. This figure comes from the arithmetic of the 'accidental' interventor (comptroller) and is far above the estimate of 9,600,000 presented in January by the outgoing PSOE government of Pascual Collado, which was based, so said Collado at the time, on figures for 2010. It was a heated debate involving all four parties on the Council. Accusations flew but it was Mayor Ruiz who accused the previous Government of having "mortally wounded" the treasury and made it impossible to obtain credit.>>>
The difference in the figures presented by the Councillor for the Treasury, Pedro Corbacho, surprised the representatives of all the groups, but particularly the PSOE, whose spokesperson, Pascual Collado, said that while he did not doubt the qualifications of the 'accidental controller' who had carried out the report, he nevertheless suggested strongly that there should be a detailed analysis by the Junta's Chamber of Audit in order to get an accurate figure.

The PA (Partido Andalucista), for its part, announced that it would make a formal petition at the next session to transfer the figures to the Court of Audit and the Prosecutor of Audit. The objective would be to get a "millimetric accounting of this dance of numbers." IU (Izquierda Unida), on the other hand, said that an "urgent restructuring" was needed, as well as a "cleaning out", to prevent the municipality from "capsizing."

Mayor Ruiz pointed out that this was an advance of the acounts as they were carrying out an independent, external audit (at a cost of €18,000) that will establish an exact figure with which to deal with the situation. 

Councillor Corbacho said that the €9.6 million of the 2010 figures presented in January, had had a series of non-budgetary expenses added. These included monies owed to creditors and other possible debts.

With the June 30, 2011 figures in hand, Corbacho pointed to the €450,920 to be returned to the State's PIE; another 340,506 to Social Security and the Tax authorities; some €200,000 of a subsidy for restoring the castle that was spent elsewhere and must be returned because the restoration was not carried out on time; plus sundry payments to service providers and to San Martín del Tesorillo.

Collado expressed his surprise that the figures had gone up considerably "in hours", as the previous information session had talked about €15,000,000 in red. He called on the new, permanent, auditor due at his post in just a few weeks, to look at the figures more closely and present them to the public again. "We are surprised. Everything is accounted for. There is no black box with hidden bills," he said.



The other parties (PP, PA and IU) agreed that it is inadmissible that each and every resident of Jimena should owe €1,700.