Council cleared at a cost

ANOTHER court case brought against Rojales town hall by opposition party PADER has been dismissed by a court in Elche.

According to a spokeswoman for the Socialist party (PSOE) council, the three PADER councillors had appealed against a ruling by the mayor’s office to approve and pay an invoice from a company for almost €50,000, as payment to install four electric vehicle chargers around the municipality.

The ruling of the court specialised in challenging decisions by public authorities can be appealed, but found that the town hall had acted correctly and ordered PADER to pay costs of €500.

It said it was unwarranted to call for the payment to be annulled on the grounds that the work was completed afterwards, since it was less than a month later and had not taken holidays into account, so therefore only constituted a mere irregularity.

Moreover, PADER had alleged that the payment was approved without a report by a municipal supervisor confirming that the services had been provided correctly.

The PSOE criticised the opposition for ‘continually’ taking court action against the town hall, saying this ‘slows down’ the work of the mayor, councillors and council technicians when they should be ‘dedicated to managing and resolving citizens’ problems, not focused on other matters like the continuous accusations from PADER’.

They reminded that all PADER’s lawsuits, including the criminal accusations, have been dismissed, but dealing with these cases has cost the municipal coffers more than €70,000.