At the extraordinary plenary session held on Tuesday the 5th at the Mijas Town Hall, the government team approved 300,000 euros for the digital office office and the acquisition of IT equipment to further improve administrative management, internal processes, and citizen services. This measure will help “make accounting more automated than it is now and allow us to exercise better internal control”, emphasised the councillor for Economy and Finance, Mario Bravo (PP). In this way, essential tools will be updated to reduce red tape and processing times in dealings between the administration and citizens.

 

In addition, the payment of invoices from the Festivities Department totalling 500,000 euros was approved; these had previously been rejected due to a dispute over who was responsible for paying the fees to the General Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE) for the musical performances at the three local fairs in 2024. Now that the company has withdrawn the legal claim it had previously filed, an agreement has been reached and the Mijas Town Hall will settle the invoices. “There were certain discrepancies because, under the contract award, that company was supposed to take care of the payment to the SGAE, and that company claimed it had done so but could not provide supporting documentation,” explained Bravo, who highlighted that “we have reached an agreement with this company to deduct 8%, which is the maximum we could consider subject to payment to the SGAE, and pay the rest”.

 

Both the purchase of software aimed at improving e-government and the payment of outstanding invoices for musical performances at the town’s fairs were included in the budget amendment initially approved by the government team, amounting to 800,000 euros.

Criticism 

Criticism from the opposition, which voted against the budget amendment, came from both the Municipal Socialist Group and the Ciudadanos group, who reproached the government team for “the lack of planning with the third budget amendment in four months”. 

Referring to the invoice relating to the Festivities Department, the Socialist spokesperson, Roy Pérez, asked Bravo: “Is the 576,000 euros owed to a company for performances at the 2024 fairs a necessary credit to fulfil an obligation? Because if it is a committed credit to a company for having provided a service, as the report itself states, we already have here the first grounds for a future objection because you have omitted a credit that was mandatory”.

 

For his part, the Ciudadanos spokesperson, José Carlos Martín, emphasised that “as the days go by, ideas and needs arise that you hadn’t anticipated, and then the urgency appears, of course, because when something is forgotten it becomes urgent, but if it had been planned, it wouldn’t be urgent”.

Bravo defended the need to carry out this new adjustment in the municipal accounts: “Of course that money was allocated in the 2024 budget; it couldn’t be put in the 2026 budget because it was an extra 500,000 euros. We’re taking it now from the surplus, which is where those 540,000 euros we had from 2024 ended up; it wasn’t a recognised and outstanding invoice as you say (referring to the Socialist spokesperson).”

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