Living on the costa

The shadow of the management undertaken by the former mayor of Marbella, Jesús Gil, for more than a decade in the city continues to weigh on the public coffers with an inherited debt, the plundering of land for facilities and the recovery of only 10% of the 200 million that could be charged for different judicial sentences, encrypting the local Administration in more than 500 million the looting suffered by the municipality during this period marked by corruption.

“The actual amount of damage caused by Gil to the municipal coffers is difficult to quantify to date still, but there is a concept that is clear, which is the money that should have been in the bank accounts and that was simply not there, that disappeared, and that we can be talking about something more than 500 million euros ” , has valued the Councilor for Finance of the City Council, Félix Romero. The calculation of this amount comes from “the effective debt that was unpaid and for which money had been collected” such as those contracted with Social Security and the Treasury, which amounted to 400 million euros, “plus the 100 million that were necessary to request from the Andalusian Government to cover the most pressing needs because that money wasn’t in the box either.”

Various legal cases have been opened over the years to prosecute corruption and there are “judicial sentences that can be around 200 million euros that could be collected by the City Council, and others are still pending completion of these procedures, ”said the mayor of the Treasury. In this sense, he has detailed that of that amount “we have been able to collect approximately 50 million euros as of todayand there you can clearly see the gap between what we have recovered and what was ultimately lost with Gil’s management”, who has estimated at “10% what we have been able to recover after almost 15 years of that government that left us practically without funds of any kind”.

Romero has specified that “the reasons for which it could be charged but are not charged because we are looking for goods are of all kinds”, but he highlighted “the accounting scope that exists in the Court of Auditors” for 172 million euros, adding that “there are all kinds of lawsuits and some responsibilities that will derive from criminal proceedings for urban agreements that are still being processed, and whose consequence may be some type of compensation that we in turn have to claim from third parties.”

The councilor has thus alluded to “procedures that are not finished and from which more money can be obtained” such as “the 172 million pending execution in the Court of Auditors”, several sentences in the National High Court such as the Looting 1 and Looting 2 cases or the Malaya Case, which “is finished”. “Unfortunately, the feeling we have is that it will be impossible to recover everything that was lost hereand we will continue to pay the bill for Gil’s management for many years and almost without a doubt it will not be able to be compensated in its entirety”, the municipal official has valued.

On the other hand, Gil’s management caused damage to the city in terms of “the lack of equipment leftof public land that was wasted and of the lawsuits and debts that they left and that we have had to face”. The casuistry of the same is diverse, but Romero has emphasized “some cases in which there is, for example, traffic with a property that could not be sold or that could not be transferred, because we are talking about assets that were limited by the General Urban Planning Plan and they could not be touched, however, they were touched”. This generated “damages that implied a debt from us to a third party, but in many cases those properties were in the possession of the third party and recovering them means compensation and an amount of money that would have to be given both to that third party and successive third parties with whom there was negotiated”.

From the Court of Auditors have pointed out what’s up “16 files that are being executed” dating between 2001 and 2007, and whose fines “can be from 6,000 euros to 57 million.” In total, they have specified that of the same “172 million remain to be executed”, being the Marbella City Council the recipient of “everything that is being recovered”, among which are “real estate, the copyright of a book by Julián Muñoz, motorcycles, cars or pension plan accounts”.

According to the data provided by the Provincial Court of Malaga, the judicial administration has delivered by the Malaya case to the Marbella Consistory of “32,366,628.27 euros” from “commercial companies linked to Juan Antonio Roca”, former Town Planning advisor, as well as pending “the delivery to the Marbella Town Hall of the Alicate estate for an amount of 593,139.73 euros, which will mean a total of 42,304,841.29 euros”.

The Looting case 1 has been instructed in the National High Court and the sentence was issued on January 23, 2009 by the 4th section of the Criminal Chamber, which contemplates the amounts of “24,387,073.77 euros of compensation” and “11,280,919.55 euros of interest paid”, as they have indicated from the high court, noting that “the amounts deposited in the judicial account have been delivered to the Marbella City Council.” The execution of the judicial ruling has meant the payment of the amount corresponding to “the compensation recognized to the Marbella City Council and interest”, pending the request by the latter for “the appraisal of costs”.

While the sentence of the case Looting 2, which also instructs the National High Court and was final on December 22, 2015; it has not been executed in its entirety, and the execution process is in “the way of coercion against the assets of some convicts.” As indicated by the judicial body, the total sum “amounts to 51,317,141.82 euros plus interest, as well as 16,117,624.13 euros in favor of the General Treasury of the Social Security”.

public facilities

For his part, the dean of the Official Association of Architects of Malaga, Francisco Sarabia, defends that the new growth or development urban planning “have to be supported by some minimum equipment standards that marks the legislation, as well as “redesign formulas” to have them in historic cities in the face of the deficit presented by the city of Marbella.

The professional has assessed that the Gil’s stage was characterized by “exacerbated growth” and a formula by which “any rich man in the city built regardless of whether it was in a green area, near the coast or on a riverbed.” This mechanism has generated “a city with a certain conflict over legal certainty of everything that was built”, with “many buildings that are in a permanent question of legality, some of them in court and with the final sentence of demolition, and that is not desirable”. In addition, we must add the deficit of facilities and public land.

In this sense, Sarabia has opted for “the growth of cities must be accompanied by all its complements” and “it is not enough that housing is being produced, but at the same time that a new city is being generated, it has to go growing in a rhythmic way with all its equipment educational, health, social, cultural and sports.

On the other hand, he referred to the existing social gap in Marbellawith “a series of neighborhoods and a social fabric that are in need of attention from the institutions” in the face of the real estate boom of luxury constructions, pointing out that “all that economic activity that is generated around to the middle and high standing residential It can have repercussions on those most disadvantaged classes and make the whole municipality grow in an even way”.

The dean has pointed out that “the most of them are high-end homes and a small number with high budgets” that are directed “to second or third residences and to a very high-level sector, usually users outside or outside Malaga, and on many occasions, even from Spain.” Therefore, it has demanded That promote affordable housing for that other part of the demand that has not been met in recent years, such as families, workers and ordinary people who have an economical, moderate and prudent salary and who require and need housing like any other family”, which “must be produced by local promoters”.