The Court of Auditors files the proceedings for the management of the l'Aigüera parking lot requested by Antifraud

The Court of Auditors has decided to archive the preliminary proceedings opened for the alleged deficiencies in the operation of L' Aigüera car park, which had been transferred to this body by the Agency for the Prevention and Fight against Fraud and Corruption of the Valencian Community. The Court, through an order signed on February 5, thus agrees with the arguments of the Benidorm City Council and agrees to file the case at the request of the Prosecutor's Office.

The order indicates that the Public Prosecutor's Office itself stated in a letter dated January 31 that, “once examining the allegations made and the documentation provided by the legal representative of the Benidorm City Council, it does not appreciate the existence of impairment of funds.” public attributable to fraud, fault or negligence of any person”, which is why it reached a different criterion than that of the initial report and proposed the archiving of the proceedings.

The events that were reported referred to the City Council's decision to order the continuity of the concession for the operation of the parking lot through a contractual modification that, as Antifraud maintained, would have caused the City Council to stop receiving 603,192.40 euros. The order of the Court of Accounts emphasizes that the damage to the creditor Administration is determined "when its corresponding credits have negligently ceased to be prescribed since only then is when the damage for it becomes effective." A situation that, according to the court, would not have occurred in this case.

Likewise, this document also recalls that the municipal plenary session, at the request of the mayor himself, agreed in December to initiate an ex officio review file related to the continuity of the concession of the public parking service, taking into account the recommendations of Anti-fraud.

Given the position of the Court of Auditors, and once the deadline for submitting a possible appeal has expired, the mayor of Benidorm, Toni Pérez, has called a press conference this Tuesday to announce the content of the order, which was already transferred yesterday to the opposition groups in an information commission.

During his appearance, the first mayor was clear: “We said it then and we say it again now: this government, like the two that preceded it, has always acted based on technical reports, always with maximum transparency and always in defence of the general interest.” Likewise, he recalled all the steps taken by the City Council since the first report of the Anti-Fraud Agency was known, a procedure that, he said, “does not bother us, because real transparency, not that of the owners, has accompanied us since we come to political responsibility.”

The mayor has indicated that, regardless of the decision now adopted by the Court of Auditors at the request of the Prosecutor's Office, the City Council will continue processing the review procedure of the plenary agreement with which the management of the parking lot was extended to "contribute even more clarity and transparency.” In this sense, he said that "we are letting the technicians work and addressing with seriousness and responsibility a series of reports to be transferred to the Consell Jurídic Consultiu", a file that will be concluded in the coming days and which will be transferred so that this body can issue its opinion before adopting the relevant administrative decisions.

In any case, Pérez has indicated that, with the filing of the case by the Court of Auditors, “it is now demonstrated that the City Council did well” and that it processed the entire file “not only the favourable reports that were mandatory and obligatory, but also those of all the areas linked to this procedure.”

He also had words for the socialist municipal group, whose deputy spokesperson went so far as to affirm that “we were facing the first major case of corruption of Toni Pérez in the Benidorm Mayor's Office.” "Eight years after being mayor, that some, mistakenly and trying to deceive everyone, attribute the first case of corruption to you, believe me, the way things are in those ranks has its merit," he reproached them, adding that in their governments There were “those who took much less time to find themselves charged.”

On this matter, the mayor has lamented that "some see in those headlines, possibly, the way to digest electoral results that they have not yet digested, based on deception, lies, insults, trying to undermine the figure of the person who speaks.". But sometimes – he continued – they do not realize that in their excess what they are harming is the city, and they are affecting the honour of the municipal technicians who oversee these procedures.

At this point, he said he understood “that the Socialist Party is not going to apologize for those headlines to the people it has affected because they have not come for that, they have come to muddy, to undermine, to harm people and those who process these procedures", after which he has demanded that, "at least, they can go out today to apologize to Benidorm and the citizens for lying to them."

Finally, he has invited the main opposition group to, on future occasions, “measure their words when what they are going to announce seriously affects the honesty of this city, of this institution and of the officials who oversee these procedures.” because “the truth only has one way”.