Posts Tagged el ejido
Another lively day in El Ejido
At yesterday’s townhall meeting in El Ejido, two workers and a union rep stripped off and ran around the townhall meeting shouting “you’ve taken everything including our underpants!”
They were protesting against the non payment of back wages to 87 gardeners employed by a subcontracter of municipal services company El Sur.
You will remember that lots of people were taken to jail after nicking 150 million of public money in El Ejido. This has lead to confusion, and non payment.
Ironically enough, some of the workers, who haven’t been paid by the townhall, are having their possessions embargoed for not paying rates back to the townhall. They, quite sensibly, argue that the townhall can take the money out of what is owed to them.
There was also a riot outside the townhall when a coachload of OAP’s were put in front of the townhall to keep the 87 gardeners out.
Bizarre.
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Michelin star for Roquetas
Posted by admin in Restaurants on December 8th, 2009
Congratulations to Alejandro Sánchez, who has just been awarded a Michelin star for his restaurant in Roquetas del Mar.
Restaurante Alejando is now the second place in Almería to have a Michelin star, after La Costa restaurant in El Ejido.
A family affair in El Ejido
The twenty people arrested yesterday in El Ejido’s corruption sting by a Madrid judge -investigation ongoing since 2007, it seems- all spent a cosy night together in jail.
They were arrested in El Ejido, Seville and Madrid – and all seem to be family. Basically, it’s the:
-Mayor (Juan Enciso, the man who bankrupted El Ejido), his wife and daughter;
-José Aléman, the Interventor Municipal, (city auditor), and his wife (they got married in the Madrid Ritz in what La Voz calls a “glam wedding”), José’s brother and wife;
-Jesús Aragón, boss of several companies
-Ambrioso Cuevas, boss of several companies, his best friend Juan Antonio Galán Eslava, Juan’s wife and his daughter;
-José Amate Rueda, ex boss of Elsur (now boss of other municipal companies) with his wife along his son, two daughters and their husbands.
The scam, which El País says netted around 150 million euros over the last six years seems to be paying municipal funds for false contracts and pocketing the cash. Nice and neat. Codeword is: Operacion Poniente.
The PAL have been thrown out of the Diputación (county council) after the PSOE broke the coalition they had with them. Much shock, horror and the usual hand wringing from all sides.
About 60 National Police sealed off the townhall, twenty homes and 12 companies yesterday, while investigators from Madrid, accompanied by tax inspectors, seized documents and computers. Everything is being shipped to Madrid on orders of the Judge. Wire taps on people’s phones have been ongoing most of the year it seems, the investigation started in early 2007. This could roll on for years, although I expect Enciso will be out back running the place in a few days – he’s been running El Ejido since 1991 and the Spanish have a relaxed attitude towards corrupt public officials (the attitude isn’t so much why did he do it?, rather bloody idiot got careless).
Enciso, despite having stellar election results every year, is Not Liked – socialist newspapers across the board are unanimous in remembering him as a “brute – even ill educated” (El País). Who also remember how in El Ejido’s race riots he “ecohed the racist and xenophobic remarks by white farm owners in the area”.
I did enjoy this opinion quote in La Voz: Enciso, possibly with his head in his hands, must be remembering when he was no more than a simple young reseller of second rate fruit and veg.
Or this one: Municipal cleaners outside [the townhall] did not know if they were to sweep up the cigarette butts or the footsteps of fear marked on the pavement outside.
I’m told several other nearby cities had a marathon shredding of paperwork session last night….
El Ejido townhall closed by police, mayor arrested
So they finally caught up to Enciso. El Ejido townhall has been closed on the orders of an investigating judge and 20 staff members -including the mayor, Juan Enciso, and the councillor for urban planning- lead away in chains.
No doubt they’ll be back by Thursday, but here’s the latest:
http://www.thereader.es/en/almeria-news-stories/949-police-swoop-on-el-ejido-council.html
D-bar, Almerimar
Posted by admin in Restaurants on June 11th, 2009
After a recent meeting with Chris (no drink involved this time!) we adjourned to D-bar, which is his local, almost at the foot of Almerimar.
Almerimar is a nice place. Not too touristy, small enough to walk everywhere and has a range of different types of bars.
I was going to steal some photos off Chris’s site but he hadn’t uploaded any good ones, so here’s one of the rather large English breakfast Chris insisted I order.
I’m not usually a fan of English breakfasts, and hadn’t had one for about 3 years (last one was probably in Eire..), so it was a novel experience. I never normally eat until about 2 in the afternoon. I ordered it with extra mushrooms and no tomato. Since they had run out of mushrooms I got an extra tomato. Pretty good tho’.
I’m told they have a new menu, and while pretty much English “pub grub” it’s got a good range, and it’s not overly expensive.
Chris had some chips, the fat bugger. (Despite claiming on his site here that I ate them all). Look at him, squeezing on the ketchup. Disgusting (yet tasty!)
It’s run by John, a large and rather loud ginger fellow who actually speaks quite a bit of sense and speaks Spanish, and his wife, who is Russian (which lets me make a joke about how she Russians around while John enjoys a beer with us).
Nice place, while it’s a bit “benidormy” in look gets a nice mix of locals and tourists (English & Spanish!) and does a decent range of food and drink. John also takes pride in his sauce collection, and claims to have the hottest sauce available in El Ejido.
D-Bar, Almerimar
Up the top of Almerimar, right hand side almost under the cliff.
2 Africans found dead in reservoirs in El Ejido
Two African immigrants have been found dead, floating in reservoirs in the last 24hours in El Ejido, in the Las Norias area. Police are refusing to comment on the case, on causes of death or if the two are linked.
Doctors let paranoid man go – hours later, he kills in El Ejido
Rather a shocking story from the Poniente Hospital de Almeria- it seems that a group of “subsaharians” brought in a friend who seemed to be suffering from convulsions and hallucinations, a 25 year old man with initials K.K.
It seems that over the last few days his behaviour had been going downhill, having got into several fights, until he reached a point where he was forcibly taken to hospital by his friends concerned at his behaviour and attacks.
The doctors in the Hospital Poniente (El Ejido) gave him the once over, some medication and sent him on his way without taking any further action.
Less than an hour later, he viciously killed a fellow Nigerian with a pole by smashing his head in, and proceeded to seriously hurt 7 other people who managed to hold him down until the Guardia turned up. It appears that he was in the grip of a serious paranoid depression, or as the newspapers politely put it, he was un loco.
This took place in the Paraje El Ayudante, just outside El Ejido. The Police believe that the murderer had no previous connection with his victim. He is currently in police custody awaiting a judge. Police are also interviewing members of staff of the hospital to ascertain the true version of events.
Full story in Spanish or translated version.
Brief hailstorm causes chaos
Never one to be left out of the national picture, Almería celebrated it’s own freak weather yesterday when a hailstorm left what has been described as “a trail of chaos” in its wake. Some greenhouses were damaged in El Ejido, La Mojonera & Aguadulce and Roquetas del Mar got quite a bit of (by now) frozen rain. No damage to persons was recorded, although the Local Police & Bomberos had to shut a couple of streets for draining as the water made them impassable.
Son of a…. El Ejido owes over €90,000,000 claims P.P.
The P.P. claims that the town hall of El Ejido is so badly managed that it has ended up with debts of over €90,000,000 (90 million euros). Or, 15 thousand million pesetas in old money.
Jose Francisco Riviera, spokeperson for the P.P. (Partido Popular) Party in El Ejido, claims that the town hall has spent more on hiding costs than controlling them; this has led to a situation in which the town hall has reached a point where unless the central government guarantees the loan nobody will lend the town hall money.
An example was mentioned: in July, the town hall spent over €200,000 in legal costs alone defending against claims in the courts by three companies that were attempting to reclaim unpaid bills owed by the town hall.
The P.P. has pointed out that in these cases, not only does the town hall owe the original debt or contract, but also the interest and penalties “that in some cases are larger than the original debt or contract price and are due soley to late payment of the capital”.
Another example was that of the Central Theatre of El Ejido. A credit was requested of 12,000,000 euros to build the place. However, since the credit rating of the town hall was so low, and the town hall could not pay on time, the banks agreed on a 20 year repayment plan – which cost an additional 8,000,000 euros in interest. So a 12 million euro project cost over 20 million euros, just because of bank loans.
The P.P. claims to be making this public because without public condemnation nothing will ever be done (yeah, right). Well, I’ve done my bit.
El Ejido is ruled by Juan Enciso, leader of the local Partido De Almeria party (PAL). A local non aligned party that neither PSOE nor PP love.
[source]
Mounted police problems in El Ejido
The Guardia Civil recently trialled sending round mounted police to patrol the many greenhouses in the area. This seems to have been a great success, inasmuch as it’s cut crime. So successful that the Guardia have announced their intention to resume patrols later this month.
However, they are a bit miffed that on Friday some joker broke into the police stables, opened the doors and shooed the police horses out into the fields.
It seems it took quite a few officers most of the day to track them all down. No horses were injured, apart from one who got a small scratch. It is rumoured that a new padlock has been brought.
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