The Jerez City Council has requested almost 140 million euros to the Ministry of Finance to pay unfavorable judgments since in 2015 it was allowed to meet these obligations through credit lines. Now, next year this amount it could be added about 9.6 million more after the municipal plenary session held on the morning of this Monday where it has been approved to request a new loan from the central administration to face the payments generated by judicial decisions that are already final or are expected to be in the coming months.
As this media reported last week, the municipal government proposed in the plenary session held this Monday this new request to the Ministry of Finance to take advantage of the credit lines enabled in recent years to give liquidity to municipalities with financial problems , the call management fund. The Delegation of Economy estimates that next year it will require about 19 million euros of this rescue measure for local entities; Now, at this time he only has to process the petition for the 9.6 million that he will face to settle adverse judicial sentences. The rest, already authorized by the Treasury and included in the municipal adjustment plan, will go to meet the maturities of other credits and returns of income received from more than the State.
The proposal presented by the government was supported by the two councilors of Go ahead Jerez and by Let’s win Jerez. Ciudadanos abstained and the PP voted against it. In this way, throughout the next year, and once it receives the approval of the Ministry (tomorrow is the last day to process the request), the loan will be signed, although the amount is an estimate as of today since in it will include the judgments that at the time of signature have acquired firmness.
Since the Ministry of Finance created the management fund in 2015 and allowed the payment of sentences with this tool, the City Council has requested 139.4 million for this purpose, according to the latest data published by the state administration. For next year, it will be the second lowest amount requested after 2016 (where it only formalized about 4.2 million for this concept). In this year, meanwhile, it has subscribed more than 27.8 million.
Although his municipal group was in favor, Raúl Ruiz-Berdejo (IU) He again demanded that solutions be adopted to solve the “structural problem” of the City Council. In this regard, he said: “It is an unpayable debt and we should start talking about forgiveness or perpetual debt or we will always be throwing the ball forward.”
For its part, Manuel Méndez (Citizens), after pointing out that his group’s abstention is aimed at “not blocking these payments due to responsibility”, he demanded that the executive clarify how he will pay the financial obligations that he will have to assume from 2024 (about 40 million euros per year) when in the In recent years, the collection obtained by the City Council “has not exceeded 200 million”.
While, Jaime Espinar, representing the PP, accused the executive of leading the Town Hall into a “diabolical spiral” and of committing a “fraud of the law” by understanding that providers are being forced to resort to justice “as a means of payment.” Thus, after reproaching the executive for “judicializing the economy”, he stressed that he is “compromising” the economic future of the City Council with these credits.
The plenary session was closed by the Economics delegate, Laura Álvarez, who once again defended that the City Council continue to adhere to these lines of credit, ensuring that they have meant a “saving of 19 million” in interest and have allowed “payment to suppliers.” After warning that “structural problems” have been “caused by 30 years of previous government“, He insisted that they are working with the Ministry to provide” solutions “to the endemic problem of the municipal economy.
However, he took the opportunity to charge against the PP, which he reproached, on the one hand, for having “prosecuted” the policy “with complaints that he has ended up losing” and, on the other, for not supporting in Congress “the measures proposed by the minister. of the Treasury ”. “We have generated certainty; on the other hand, it creates uncertainty that the Social Security of the workers of the City Council or the Tax Agency is not paid ”, he declared.
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