The ordinary plenary session held on Friday morning in the Mijas Town Hall included, as a matter of urgency, the payment of seven invoices from Last Tour, promoters of the Cala Mijas festival, for a value of 952,875 euros. These invoices, corresponding to the 2023 edition and for the periods from January to July, are subject to an objection by the Municipal Intervention and had not been audited during the previous term of office. In the vote, all the groups that make up the Corporation have abstained so it has been decided to hold an extraordinary plenary session exclusively for Cala Mijas to take up this issue and also include the payment of the August invoice and the invoice corresponding to the final 10%, which also remain unpaid.

Throughout the various interventions, the government team has highlighted the efforts made since arriving at the Mijas Town Hall on November 2nd, "to bring to fruition the celebration of Cala Mijas", from the local executive they say that "the fact of having brought to plenary the payment of outstanding invoices", they point out, shows "their firm disposition to do so". "We do want the festival to continue to be held and we do want to fulfil the commitments made under the contract by which the first and second editions were held in 2022 and 2023", said the councillor for Finance, Mario Bravo (PP), who added that "the festival has been held and our obligation is to comply with that contract and pay these amounts". 

The mayoress, Ana Mata, has detailed that the invoices which have been brought to the plenary session today are seven in number and amount to nearly one million euros. According to the mayoress, "they all form part of the contract that the Town Hall signed with the developer and correspond to the months of January to July 2023, as the form of payment established in this agreement determines the advance payment of eight monthly instalments and a final invoice, corresponding to the remaining 10%, which is paid once the final justification has been presented, all for a total of 1.2 million euros. Therefore, there is still a monthly payment pending whose invoice has been returned by the person in charge of the contract, as well as the final invoice which has not been approved by the contract manager".

Cala Mijas Festival 

In 2022 the first edition of Cala Mijas was held. The contract stipulated that the municipality had to offer a space prepared to host an event of such magnitude. Not having the necessary facilities, the previous government team, recalled Mata, "offered the Cortijo Colorado for the celebration, which has 145,000 square meters and is public domain. According to the aforementioned contract, the Town Hall must provide the space with the basic connections for its adaptation and the promoter will be in charge of the conditioning and infrastructures necessary for the correct development of the event. However, as the current government team pointed out in plenary session, "from the outset, the previous government team assumed these duties, without any project to carry out the work or safety study or approval of the same by the competent entities. From all of this, the Municipal Comptroller's Office detects investments by the Town Hall for an estimated value of more than 500,000 euros carried out by the Operational Services. In addition to this, as it is a public space, it entails the payment of fees [for the occupation of public roads], which can never be subsidised, given that this space [Cortijo Colorado] is no longer destined for the population and is used exclusively for the celebration of a lucrative activity".

In summary, "at that time these incomes were neither paid nor settled, the council assumes expenses that do not correspond to it and, furthermore, there are problems with the verification of the documentation that must accompany the proof of payment of the sponsorship itself", according to the government team, who also add that "the contractor, who is the sponsor, must document the existence of expenses and an investment that justifies the payment of the 1.2 million euros per year established in the initial agreement". The report issued by the Municipal Comptroller's Office, which in 2023 informed the Court of Auditors of the possible existence of accounting liability for the use of public funds, bases its justification on all of the above. "On 13 April 2023, the Court of Auditors' agreement was received by the Town Hall rejecting the allegations of the Town Hall and passed on to the investigation; while the Court of Auditors replied, the payments for the year 2023 were not processed, they were not promoted by the then government team", the mayoress explained in plenary session on Friday that, "if we have reached this situation, it is because this team that arrived on the 2nd of November, wants to do things well".  

According to Mata's intervention during Friday's plenary session, "the Intervention has again warned that, in the 2023 edition, there has been a series of expenses that may not correspond to the Town Hall and which could exceed 2 million euros, far from the 1.2 million euros that the Town Hall is contractually obliged to pay. A small but enlightening example is the fact that it was the Town Hall that was responsible for assuming the cost of the buses that transported the attendees from the camping area, also municipally owned, and whose expenditure has risen from 30,000 euros in 2022 to 50,000 in 2023". "Following the reports of the Intervention, over the course of 2023 a series of income settlements have been carried out, which the Intervention does not agree with, and which have established that the occupation of the public domain land of Cortijo Colorado, which has 145. 000 square metres, has been valued the same as a day's cost for the Manuel España Theatre [Las Lagunas]", added Mata, who recalled that, "as the contract states, the line-up should have been presented for approval in September 2023, just at the end of the last edition and, to date, no official communication has been received regarding the composition of the line-up, as explicitly stated in the agreement". 

Opposition 

From the opposition, the councillor of the municipal group PSOE, Josele González, expressed his doubts about the intentions of the current government team regarding the continuity of this festival. "I believe that you don't really want to hold the festival, because the one who promoted it was another government team", said González, who, addressing the government team, added that "what you are looking for is to try to muddle the issue so that the festival will not be held this year due to a lack of commitment by the previous government team, due to a lack of organisation by the government team". "Now you have the opportunity, with all the work practically done, to hold three more editions with the same success", he concluded. 

For their part, from the municipal Ciudadanos group they were in favour of having dealt with and clarified this matter before taking it to plenary, "the Court of Auditors will already rule and say if things have been done well and if they have been done badly how they have to be corrected. It would have been perfectly good for all of us to meet beforehand, to talk about the festival so that it could go ahead, because the message we have sent out in this plenary session is that we are not sure if the festival is going to take place", said José Carlos Martín. 

Extraordinary plenary session 

With a contract in force and, despite the fact that the invoices for 2023 were unpaid, the government team presided over by Mata showed its "interest" in the continuity of the festival. "We all know that the Cala Mijas is a very positive event for our municipality, but it must be understood that it must comply with everything established in the agreement so as not to prejudice the Mijeños and Mijeñas. We believe it is appropriate that this matter be dealt with in a plenary session to explain the situation in depth and I am satisfied with the agreement of all the groups to hold the extraordinary session", concluded the mayoress, who pointed out that "the organisation has been informed of the need to resolve the issues that had led to the objections of the Municipal Comptroller.

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