The Consistory will take to plenary session next Monday to take advantage of the State Management Fund to pay another 43 million from judicial decisions, “guaranteeing the viability of the institution and the levels of services and investment until the year 2032”.
The City Council has faced in the last fifteen years more than 400 million euros derived from the debt generated in the municipal coffers during the ‘GIL era’. An amount that will be increased by an additional 43 million euros to pay a series of legal proceedings with a final judgment that respond to claims of that time. “We have had to face the economic responsibilities of those harmed by the excesses of the GIL, an astronomical amount that would have been impossible to assume by any other municipal government and in any other city,” said the municipal spokesman and councilor for the Treasury, Félix Romero , which has valued the work carried out by the local Executive and the staff of the Consistory during these years to maintain the provision of services and the quality of life of the residents of the city at the same time as assuming “a bill of enormous dimensions ”. “We are talking about an amount similar to the amount of the Madrid Works Plan for the next two terms, to the civil works and technological equipment of the new state of Santiago Bernabéu or to the sum of the budget for this year of all municipalities, except Marbella, which they make up the Commonwealth of Municipalities of the Western Costa del Sol ”, he stressed.
The mayor explained that to face those 43 million euros, of judicial decisions of lawsuits that in many cases have benefited from the reinterpretation that the Supreme Court makes of the limitation period, the Plenary will submit for approval next Monday, 13 September, that the City Council avail itself of the State Management Fund to pay that amount, “guaranteeing the viability of the institution and the levels of services and investment until the year 2032.” “We trust that it will be the last invoice in relation to this stage, but, if it were not, the mechanism we have used is dynamic and allows its expansion”, he specified.
Romero recalled that “in 2007, after the dissolution of the Corporation and when we took over the reins of the City Council, we found ourselves faced with the need to face a bill of immense dimensions, with significant debts with Social Security and the Treasury, a large staff and a huge hole in the municipal coffers ”. “We were solving it with rigor, sacrifice and also with the support of other administrations, although not always to the degree that we would have liked”, has detailed the municipal spokesman, who added that “together with these problems we have also had to face to the responsibilities generated by those who were believed or actually were harmed by the management at the time described “. “From the beginning, the criteria of this government team was to fight each claim in court, so that the invoice of the GIL era for the people of Marbella would be as less burdensome as possible,” he stressed.
“In parallel, the economic management in this sense has been done in a very hard work, without affecting either services or investment in the city,” said the head of the Treasury, who has emphasized that ” Throughout these fifteen years we have undertaken major works that have transformed the city, we have relaunched the Marbella brand and positioned the image of the city again where it deserves nationally and internationally, we have improved the quality of life of our neighbors and visitors and we have responded to the needs of the most vulnerable ”. “All this while we were facing an immense inherited debt,” he stressed.
“When we have had proof of the last batch of judicial decisions, with such a significant impact, we set to work and seek satisfactory solutions for the institution and, in this sense, next Monday we will bring to the Plenary a measure that will solve the problem, structure the obligation that we have to face and will guarantee the ordinary functioning of the city ”, he indicated. “We have already done it other times, so our credibility assists us,” said Romero, who has detailed that “the amount requested from the State Management Fund will be returned in ten years and we must also approve an adjustment plan, which will not It is nothing traumatic and it only forces us to maintain budgetary rigor and cut current spending by 4 percent, but without the need to raise taxes or reduce the workforce ”. In addition, “we are fortunate that the Junta de Andalucía has published the possibility that the municipalities can request the postponement of up to two years of the settlements that have to be made for debt, which will allow us to face the situation with even more guarantees “, has added.