what happened yesterday in the Control Commission of the City Council of Santa Cruz it was nothing uplifting. For two councilors to shout out their interpellations when the bottom line is that there are 80 people who work in the City Council and who have not been paid for two months, does not seem like the best way to solve their problem, or to help make the problem known. origin of it. Some workers for whom the IMAS has already enabled a line of specific aid that allows them to cover their basic needs, that is how serious the matter is. Both mayors, that of the Presidency, Alfonso Cabello, and Dolores Espinosa, who in addition to being a UP councilor is one of the affected workers and a member of the works council, apologized for their outburst, which was truly scandalous.
Without a doubt, that of the mayor of the Presidency was the most striking, due to his belligerence and for accusing Espinosa of having kept information that could speed up payments to the security company. SH Lanzarote, on which Social Security maintains two embargoes. This accusation was flatly rejected by the UP councilor.
Cabello, at the end of the Control Commission, reiterated his apologies for the form, but not for the substance. “The UP councilor had a document that she believed could solve the payment of payroll and, instead of sending it to us, in case we didn’t have it, what she did was keep it for political use in the Commission,” he defended.
This accusation was refuted by Espinosa, who said that he had accessed the document in question a few hours before and that he took it directly to the Commission, since the mayor had assured in the meeting he held with the workers, which she attended, that he did not I had an official record of it.
The paper in question is a communication from the Social Security Treasury to SH Lanzarote, dated March 22, in which it states that the contracts that the company maintains with third parties, such as payroll payments, transferred to the Santander bank by the company through a factoringwould not be subject to the embargo.
That communication, according to the treasurer of the City Council, as defended by Cabello, does not imply that it can be paid, but rather that first the bank that is in charge of paying the payroll must make a report that certifies that the money it receives is for salaries, send it to Social Security, and this will give its approval and lift the embargo on that part of the debt. And this last step, according to Cabello, is where it is at the moment.
“After the meeting on Tuesday, the General Treasury of the Social Security told us that next week there will be that last report and it will be possible to proceed with the payment of the invoices that we have pending, which are ready to be paid, so that that money go to the payment of staff payroll,” he said.
Espinosa, although he understands that the City Council is a third party in a problem between SH Lanzarote and the Social Security, recalls that there is subsidiary civil liability and that awarding the contract to an unsound company is what has led to the current situation. The mayor recalled that “we are not only talking about the debt of the Consistory, but also that of the IMAS, Culture and Urban Planning, which also have contracts with SH Lanzarote”. Likewise, she assures that, between all of them, the debt can reach 500,000 euros.
Cabello insisted that they are doing everything possible, when “the easy thing would be for us to pay and for the company to deal with Social Security, but that is not going to help the workers.” The mayor also advanced that, for the sake of transparency, he will keep the opposition spokespersons promptly informed about the steps that continue to be taken. From the PSOE, his spokesperson, José Ángel Martín, recalled that the City Council has already gone through this with Mararía.
