"Don't stop it, Cospedal, don't stop it," shouts Ángel Tomás Godoy, from the PSOE, while speaking at the debate on investments in highways in the region scheduled for February 17 of this year in the Cortes of Castilla-La Mancha.
He refers to the harangues that the presidents of the Cuenca and Albacete councils launched at the president of La Mancha when the highway between the two cities was paralyzed.
His speech uncovers an issue that affects the pockets of the Castilian people of La Mancha: the compensation paid to private companies by the current PSOE Government (in power since 2015) for the stoppage or liquidation of unpaid works on roads that it decided almost a year ago decade the Government headed by María Dolores de Cospedal (PP) between 2011 and 2015. Some decisions that have resulted in a disbursement of 31 million euros,
“For us it would have been easier to say: 'Let the judge decide.'
But we would have paid three times more”, says David Merino, general director of Highways and Transport of the Ministry of Development, about the agreements reached by the Executive with 15 companies affected by three projects that were not executed, and by another three in the They did not get paid after finishing the works.
A situation by no means exceptional: the Government of Castilla-La Mancha has already had to face the payment of 17.5 million euros in compensation for the paralysis of seven health infrastructures.
Why did Cospedal paralyze those works promoted between 2008 and 2011 by the previous Executive, of the PSOE?
Because the economic crisis hit the accounts of the autonomous community, justifies the PP.
“The legislation from 2011 to 2015 was terribly harsh due to the economic situation,” argue from the Popular Party of Castilla-La Mancha.
“The debts left by the socialist governments left the Cospedal government tied hand and foot.
When you have to face an economic situation in which there are difficulties in paying the payroll of public workers, well, like building highways...”.
Here are four examples of the agreements consulted:
November 10, 2015. The Governing Council approves an expenditure of 3.4 million euros to pay the companies in charge of building the first section of the Júcar motorway, which would allow rapid communication between Albacete and Cuenca, but which would never came to materialize.
"Millions of euros have been paid, but not a meter of road has been built," explains David Merino, general director of Roads and Transport of the Ministry of Development.
The same thing happened with the second section, whose stoppage meant 3.5 million euros for the Castilian-Manchegos.
A dormant project that more than a decade later no one has recovered.
December 20, 2016, another setback for the public coffers of Castilla-La Mancha.
The regional Executive had to compensate the company with 309,000 euros, because one of the three axes of the La Sagra highway, in Toledo, had been paralyzed.
"Three million had already been paid for liquidation, but the company did not agree with the figure and continued to claim," they detail in the Castilian-Manchego Government.
To the indemnities for paralyzing works are added those for discrepancies in the liquidation of finished works.
This is the case of the first section of the IV Centenario highway, from Ciudad Real to the municipality of Granátula de Calatrava, completed in 2011. The company requested 16 million euros.
Four years later, they reached an agreement of 6.9 million euros.
"The biggest problem was that the PP did not want to reach any type of negotiation with the companies," says Merino.
Add and continue.
In 2016, three claims from the construction companies of the South Round of Talavera de la Reina: liquidation, excess of work carried out and late payment interest for the late payment of the certifications, which ended in compensation of 8.9 million euros.
The consequences lasted until 2019, when the Board authorized a payment of 7.8 million to sign the settlement of the first section of the La Sagra highway, which in May 2011 opened to traffic.
Five years later, the controversy is still present in the day to day of Castilian-Manchego politics.
It is only necessary to return to the aforementioned plenary session in February of this year in the regional courts: “Come on highway projects that are very expensive, and that are allowed to expire, and that have to be done again.
Money is spent on that, a lot of money, but, on building roads, few”, Javier Sevilla, from Ciudadanos, complained in one of them.
"With much pain, it had to be decided not to continue with many of the infrastructures, including some already awarded, which, on this land, could not be paid for," said María Roldán, from the PP, to which Ignacio Hernando, Minister of Public Works (PSOE), answered ironically: "Emiliano García-Page [the current president, of the PSOE] will arrive and he will compensate them later, Page will arrive and he will pay what we owe."
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