The PSOE municipal group in Santa Pola has denounced the non-payment by the ruling PP Council for extraordinary services since April. The outstanding works are, above all, those related to events such as electrical installations, assembly, and other related works.
After 4 months without paying overtime, the news has been brought to the attention of the press after several complaints from the union sections of the Local Police, who revealed the situation that part of the institution’s staff is experiencing.
Although the local security force of Santa Pola, after publicly denouncing the current governing team of the PP in the media, did collect its arrears, the rest of the municipal departments have still not received the arrears accumulated since April for all the services provided.
For the PSOE of Santa Pola, the reason for the non-payments does not lie in an economic reason because “the Local Police has indeed collected”, so they ‘deduce’ that there is solvency given that they also denounce a lack of transparency and opacity regarding access to documentation relating to municipal affairs.
David Fernández, a PSOE councillor in Santa Pola, says that the problem is not the bureaucracy itself, but the lack of planning for the numerous events that must be attended to. “The civil servants work these extra hours because the Town Hall asks them to. Therefore, the fact that Human Resources does not pay them is a double disadvantage for the workers because they do more work and earn less than they are entitled to,” says David Fernández.
For the socialist councillor, everything comes down to an organisational problem that clashes head-on with bureaucracy, given that the procedure for approving the performance of extraordinary services begins with a report from the head of the service explaining the reason, the number of hours, number of workers and the days of performance. This report then goes to the councillor of the area who issues a proposal that is taken to the Governing Board. Once approved by this body, Intervention (the area in charge of payment) pays for the hours worked. This process lasts between two weeks and a month.
The alleged lack of planning by the current government regarding its activities would mean that these reports would not arrive in time for the events. This would cause a ‘formal defect’ that would prevent the work carried out by the city council in recent months from being legally paid for.
