Error May Cost Torrevieja €16.1M

Shock at Government announcement over construction projects.

The town hall of Torrevieja were in shock last week as it emerged that five out of the six projects that the town’s

administration had put forward to the national government would not be paid for, as the project submissions arrived too late for consideration. The projects are all part of the FEIL state funding programme for local investment to ease the effects of the economic crisis. According to reports it appears there was some clerical error that meant that the official papers to back the projects were sent to Madrid up to two months later than the official closing date. The announcement was made at a meeting in Madrid between the mayor and council representatives from Torrevieja with the Dirección General de Cooperación Territorial headed by María Tena. She explained to the delegation that although the projects were approved in principle in January the detailed proposals should have been submitted no more than one month later. In the case of five of the six Torrevieja projects the paperwork did not arrive until March and April. She said they could not make any exceptions to the rules and as a consequence they would not be eligible for payment under the FEIL scheme.
 

The only project that arrived before the official closing date was the project to renew lighting at Cabo Cervera at a cost of 460,000 euros. The other five projects are the reformation and pedestrianisation of Caballero de Rodas at 3.5 million euros, The new rugby pitch and facilities costing 2 million euros, the town hall at La Mata costing 3.3 million euros, the new courts for tennis and padel plus facilities costing 4.7 million euros and the new football pitches at a cost of 2.3 million euros. To qualify all the projects have to be completed by the end of the year and the projects have been awarded with the construction already started and underway. This has given rise to real concerns as how the projects will be paid for. The mayor, Pedro Hernández Mateo, has said that contractors should not worry about payment for the work but opposition parties have raised the spectre of the town being saddled with an additional, unexpected bill of 16.1 million euros for the unapproved projects. There have been calls for resignations over the affair from both the opposition PSOE party and Domingo Soler, the PP councillor who is tipped to stand against the current mayor in the next local elections, arguing that someone must be accountable and should be sacked.

Los Verdes have demanded an explanation of events at an extraordinary council meeting.
 

The provincial secretary of the PSOE PSPV, Ferran Verdú, is reported by one source as claiming that the City Council were advised repeatedly about deadlines but the same source quoted the mayor of Torrevieja as denying the documents had been submitted incorrectly and that an appeal would be made against the decision. Strictly speaking the official announcement of the non support of the projects is still to be made and so there is some hope that an appeal may be successful in reversing the department’s decision.
 

Unless there is some satisfactory explanation, the affair is, at least, a severe embarrassment to the current administration, and at the worst it could be an extremely expensive error which the taxpayer will have to pick up at some stage.