The plenary session gave the green light on Monday 30th to the payment of invoices for more than 1.2 million euros for the home help service, that the Town Hall offers to the elderly, between April and November 2024. The resolution of the expenditure file was approved by the government team, while the opposition voted against it. “It is with the votes in favour of the government team that the elderly can continue to enjoy home care in our municipality”, said the mayoress of Mijas, Ana Mata (PP). The councillor for Finance, Mario Bravo (PP), explained that, in order to make the payment before the end of the year, the motion was presented as a matter of urgency. Bravo pointed out that the contract for this service ended in 2020 and that since then it had been offered without a contract, so they decided to put it out to tender in 2024 and, “in parallel, to contract this service on an emergency basis”. “BCM was the company awarded, as there was no money foreseen for this company - all the money was withheld for the contract -, the budget had to be increased and all the invoices have been presented since then, April 2024, for a total of 1,289,162.65 euros.” Bravo explained that the contract was made “like emergency contracts without the need to retain credit, but then credit has been provided” and it is paid now, “when the budget modification has already come into force”, he added.

 

The opposition criticised the procedure. “You made a contract that should not be made according to the Comptroller’s Office because it is an emergency contract and the word used [by the comptroller] is ‘improper’. In other words, you are doing it wrong”, said the spokesman for the PSOE municipal group, Roy Pérez, who also pointed out that the contract was made without a budget and delayed payment of the invoices. the spokesman for Cs, José Carlos Martín, also denounced the procedure: “You [addressing Bravo] are talking about an emergency contract which is clearly inappropriate. It is not the model contracting file for emergency contracts, you have processed it as an emergency, fantastic, but it is inappropriate”.

“We took forward this emergency contract between April and March 2024 because the company, which had been without a contract for more than three years and was in a situation of insolvency from which it subsequently emerged, threatened to stop providing the service and our responsibility towards users obliged us to take risky decisions”, Bravo explained, adding that this procedure was quicker than the emergency one.

 

Other expenditure files

On the other hand, the Plenary also approved another resolution of expenditure files for a value of 338,000 euros relating to invoices from different areas. Bravo explained that “there are basically 250,000 euros between electricity supply and electricity materials that are for public roads but which the Town Hall has not received”. “We have the legal objection about the competence of this expenditure”, added the councillor for the Treasury, who also explained that there are three files for tourism events, two bus trips by the Mijas Music Band for about 200 euros and an act of Agriculture and Fisheries. 

From the opposition they emphasised the objections of the Comptroller’s Office and considered that the government team is making them its “modus operandi”. “Assertions such as the inadequate budgetary imputation for not accrediting that it is a municipal expense worries us”, said as an example Pérez, who pointed out others such as “making expenditures that do not correspond to this town hall”. For his part, the spokesman for Cs made a request to Bravo: “I would ask you, as far as possible, to start correcting the types of objections that are contract splitting and, above all, also those that refer to activities that are not specific to the Town Hall”.

 

The councillor for the Treasury replied: “The word ‘modus operandi’ has been repeated 15 times by the two of you. The list of expenses with objections, goes to the Court of Auditors and it is there that they study whether it is a way of doing things or if it is simply a question of errors in management”. Bravo also recalled that in 2023, when they did not govern, there were 32 million of expenditure with objections and 30 in 2022 and stressed that these files, although they are not the only ones in 2024, add up to only 338,000 euros. The point went ahead with the government team voting in favour and the opposition against.

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