All the opposition groups have demanded explanations after the news reported by the newspaper Información according to which the Councilor for Fiestas and Rural Parties, Manuel Jiménez, awarded a project to a contractor who had carried out reforms in his house and with whom he has a relationship personal since it belongs to the same Bonfire, a festive entity of which both are members. The opposition questions the legality of the contract and demands explanations from the mayor and PP candidate to repeat in office, Luis Barcala, who until now has avoided making statements.
Instead, on behalf of the government team made up of PP and Cs, it has been the spokesman Manuel Villar who has defended the legality in the processing of four different contracts related to different actions carried out in the Plaza de la partida rural de La Alcoraya and with the intervention of the departments of Infrastructure and Rural Districts and Citizen Participation.
These are four minor contracts -for an amount of less than 60,000 euros each- formalized in 2022 for a total amount of about 135,000 euros. This includes a circuit of bio-healthy devices in the square, the reform of the existing stage and the installation of a new pergola, in addition to the drafting of the latter’s project.
At least two of them, the drafting of the pergola project and its construction and installation, would have been arranged through two negotiated procedures, with budget requests from three companies invited by the city council, and would have ended up being awarded to firms represented by people related to the mayor of Games, Participation and Festivals, Manuel Jiménez, as he belongs to the area of ​​the Bonfires, whose federation the councilor presided over.
The installation of the pergola was also carried out by a company that had carried out reforms in Jiménez’s private home a year and a half earlier, in May 2021. Villar has ensured that all contracting procedures have had the required technical supervision and that his processing and payment had the approval of the Department of Intervention.
However, the three municipal opposition parties (PSOE, Unides Podem and CompromÃs) are not satisfied with the explanations received and demand full transparency and the intervention of the mayor.
The Socialist candidate for Mayor of Alicante, Ana Barceló, has demanded that the mayor appear: “We are concerned about the image that is being given of the city as a result of the suspicions that hang over the government team. There are many doubts, many issues to clarify while Barcala is missing. Until now, all we have are the contradictory statements of three councilors and a contract awarded by hand to the company that, precisely, carried out works in a house belonging to the mayor Manuel Jiménez. All this situation denotes that there is a misgovernment. Let’s get to the bottom of the matter.”
Barceló considers it “unacceptable” that Councilor Jiménez has dispatched the issue of the award “by hand” alleging that “in Alicante we all know each other.” The former minister wonders why the controversial contract for the construction of the pergola has not been posted on the transparency portal or on the contracting platform: “It is a document that has been hidden,” she affirms.
For his part, the spokesman for Unides Podem EU, Xavier López, has also denounced “the lack of transparency” because minor contracts “are not published on the municipal portal” and has asked the mayor of Parties until the facts are clarified.
The municipal spokesperson and the CompromÃs mayoral candidate, Natxo Bellido and Rafa Mas, respectively, have spoken in similar terms, insisting on the demand for explanations about the existence of different contracts in the same area “that seem to coincide temporarily” . But he has also summoned the mayor to “preventively dismiss” the mayor Jiménez.
