Amie KeeleyTHE records of over 6,000 public employees are being scrutinised after the Junta was linked to a sleazy 647 million euro early-retirement fraud.
Resignation calls are flooding in after it emerged that at least 70 people were falsely listed as company employees in order to defraud public funds.
It comes after former employment minister Francisco Guerrero admitted the Junta had used a ‘slush fund’ to pay bogus employees for early retirement between 2001 and 2010.
Many of them had never even worked there, but still received cash payoffs.
In the so-called ERE retirement scandal, names were often simply added to the lists of companies that were going into liquidation or failing.
The workers were then given early retirement as part of so-called ‘staff cutbacks’.
Much of the money, it is understood, came from direct grants from the EU.
A spokesman for the PP party Esteban Gonzalez said: “This is the biggest fraudulent use of public money in Spain.
“We want to know the whole truth and this has only just begun.”
The Junta has agreed to cooperate and is investigating its own records.
This is the same bunch of crooks who are quite happy to demolish properties they and the other bunch of crooks running town councils allowed to be built.
The whole country appears to be run for the benefit of this shower of parasites, their friends the property developers and people running the so-called legal system.
As friends of mine have said, in Spain you are really part of Africa, not Europe. Maybe the Spanish have taught corruption to that continent by example?
Depressing reading. The whole system in Spain is corrupt and needs a ground-up purge. Great advert for wooing buyers back to Spain lol.
Tony,
the Spanish imported corruption to Central and South America.
The Inca Empire, created by offering gaurantees of food not military conquest to other peoples in the Andean area was a model of transparent efficiency.
All this they jealousy smashed to pieces – every single country created by their mass murdering conquistadores in Central and South America is today a role model for corruption and inefficiency.
Was this article even remotely a surprise to anyone reading the Olive Press.
Agreed Stuart, two continents corrupted.
My suspicion is that corruption goes hand-in-hand with totalitarian regimes, extreme left or right. Once these regimes collapse, the tens of thousands of ex-collaborators, employed to suppress and milk the population, are then left with little to do. But they find their evil talents put to use in crime and corruption of all kinds. Tasks for which they are well suited.
This together with many other frauds is as stated operated by the ex dictator mentality. The big firms in Spain are run on the same basis Endesa being the main culprit. The EU should now be required by the people to fully investigate where EU funds have gone. This money belongs to ALL EU members and Spain will have to account for this massive abuse.
The time has come for this investigation
Is there anyone who doesn’t think this is just the tip of an enormous iceberg of lies and corruption in Spanish central and local Goverment alike?
And when you look out your window and see that brand new Mercedes cruise by don’t you think you couldn’t trace the funding all the way back to ER development grants?
What country would want to deal with Spain after these revelation? …its a nasty corrupt back-stabbing horrible place to do business.
Everyone is looking to take what’s yours and give nothing back!
Its corruption everywhere…turn every stone and its stinks of putrid fithly fingers in rotten pies.
And will the EU do anything about it?
Will they hell!
It’s just the same there in the EU treasury!
Neil Kinnock went to Strasbourg on a remit to sort out corruption.
He then gave his wife a job and is living the high life never been heard of since!
Become an EU MEP and become an instant millioniare on fiddling expenses!
What amazes me is the trust that the general public put in their officialdom especially in Spain…they end up paying off debts in their local authorities caused by blatent theft and they do nothing. WHY?
Are they still in fear of Franco mode…why don’t these people do something collecrtively…or are they all in the game?
What a shame they seem to be intent on ruining a lovely country.
In the western world of business its win/win
With Spain they want to win and everyone else lose and they will crook you to make sure that is the case.
In ten years we may look back and see what effect this will have as inward investment grinds to a halt.
Barclays are already closing branches here…are they the first to distance them selves from fraud and corruption or are they just as bad!
I will not trust any public servant in Spain again!
Well said.
I have been collecting information from people living in Spain. Brits, Spaniards, Dutch, Irish, German etc. for over a year I would like to hear from anyone with genuine stories of corruption. People whom have had problems with the Spanish government and utilities. Especially stories regarding Endesa.
Total anonymmity guaranteed,but I would need some details which as I said will NOT be divulged. I am a journalist.
So far I have collected about 10 horror stories sand I have many photographs as evidence.
This matter can be sorted out with the EU if we/I accumulate plenty of evidence.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Perhaps we can start a blog ?
thanks
why is corruption so endemic here ….. i personally have fallen foul of endesa and had to pay up or loose my electric forever. i fell foul of a corrupt lawyer on a misuse of power of attorney. and lets not start on the banks here or we will be talking all day …. however the weathers good and the wine is still cheap .
lol don’t you just love Spain, surely the only place where you can lose your power supply “FOREVER”. Endesa are run like the mafia. Btw, a Power of Attorney in Spain is just asking for trouble.
ahh my dear old mate fred …. yes i now know that from bitter experience that a power of attorney is asking for trouble …. stable door and horse ……
actually i dont think your been fair on the mafia comparing them to endesa at least you can negotiate with the mafia
You can negotiate with Endesa as well, albeit for 5.7 seconds and then they remove your house from the grid indefinitely.
To Stuart Crawford: if you think Spain exported corruption to Latin America then surely the British Empire did just the same in her colonies! I am fed up with people like you who self-righteously think you Britons are superior to the rest of the world!! But you aren’t!!
A bit late in the day for comments Antonio!! But I couldn’t disagree with you more – Britain generally left behind in her colonies a framework of institutions necessary for a democratic civilization, which became fulfilled in most of them – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, even the USA if we go back far enough and a Parliamentary system copied by most of the free world. The International index of corruption tables are a good indication of where in the world corruption thrives.
As for us Brits feeling superior? I don’t think so by any stretch of the imagination, with our football louts, drunken orgies in public, etc. But we do feel that poor old Spain doesn’t stand a chance while the general population allow crooks such as those in the Andalucian Junta to run the country. It’s all down to the average person turning a ‘blind eye’ when they have the power to stop it in their electoral system.
Corruption in S. America – I have always thought that a good part of this followed the ending of both world wars and the scuttling off to S. America of many German war criminals, culminating in the emergence of right wing dictators, etc. But then my grasp of history fails me in a deeper understanding.
All we want to do, as guests in beautiful Spain, is to gently prod here and there, hoping to galvanize people into some sort of action – instead of enduring a slow death under the weight of vast institutional corruption.
The problem began in america with the ‘ Seven Sisters’ oil companies after WW2. The Red joined the crooks to take over the world by banks and large corporations.
Time the people of the world woke up. there are rather a lot of people compared to the number of crooks.
Revolution s began locally, the nationally now the big one is to come ….
To Antonio2:
1. The fact that you start criticising the time WHEN I posted my comment only confirms that you are definitely a Brit, a self-rigtheous and superior-like one: I post my comments when I LIKE, of course!
2. England’s ONLY interest in her colonies in the past was ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION. You cannot properly talk of democratic institutions being created by the British Empire. That is BULLSHIT.
3. Your assumptions are WRONG: We Spanish citizens DON’T allow crooks to rule our country. They have taken over it. Also, Spanish people CANNOT change the electoral system on our own accord. If we were given any chance the majority of our people would go for it. In any case, what makes you think that a bunch of Brits living in Southern Spain can do better?
4. Try and reply in Spanish if you can.
As you say in UK, please take no offense.
When commenting I always try to remember the subject of the original article – which of course in Spain is corruption on a vast scale. I hope my comments are not simply (mis)understood as criticism.
Of course the British Empire was about exploitation – but it was both ways. Ships went out loaded with essential supplies (and convicts), came back loaded with whatever that country could supply.
If you doubt the existence of relics of these ‘democratic institutions’ in these colonies, go and have a look at the magnificent colonial buildings, constructed to administer justice, rudimentary democracy, etc. Even in post-colonial India these rank as monuments to be treasured.
The global perspective was one of a ;family of nations’ with a common goal.
Sorry, Antonio, you DO allow crooks to run your country, that is what all the fuss is about. You DO have the oportunity at election time to remove these undesirable characters from power but the Spanish seem over-awed with the glamour of MONEY and vote them back in.
But things are changing. Faced with the re-election of known planning crooks, ex-pats locally voted for a representative other than Spanish. We now have someone within the local Ayuntamiento who not only speaks and understands Spanish, but is in a position to broadcast any crooked deals.
So you see a bunch of ex-pats can make a difference and this will progress.
I finally have to confess to being just another ignorant ex-pat – I cannot speak your language but at 75 I do make attempts.
Let us all just have the best interests of Spain – and Europe, at heart and thanks for you comments, Antonio.
Apologies for not expressing my point of view in Spanish.