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ARCHIVED - 50 million euros earmarked to help the Mar Menor ecosystem were spent in Seville
When the 50-million-euro project was deemed ‘ineffective’, the money was ‘diverted’ to public water supply companies in Andalucia
The Ministry for Ecological Transition yesterday released a statement admitting that more than 50 million euros in European funds which the central government had earmarked to be spent on the Integrated Territorial Investment (ITI) of the Mar Menor, had in reality been spent on a different water project in Seville.
The Ministry explained that these funds should have financed the construction of the ‘zero discharge’ collector in the northern part of the Mar Menor, but that in 2019 it decided not to go ahead with this project because it considered it to be ineffective in counteracting the deterioration of the lagoon.
Instead of investing these 50 million euros in another, more effective, project in the Mar Menor or in the Region of Murcia, they opted to “redirect” it, allocating the funds to the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation, “for actions carried out by Emasesa and Aljafarafesa”, public water supply and sanitation companies based in Seville.
This version differs from that put forward by Ana Isabel Vega Escudero, a representative of the Ministry of Finance, at a meeting to monitor the implementation of the European Feder funds held in November last year, in which she claimed that these funds had been used to cover the increase in health expenditure due to Covid-19.
In response to its ‘mistake’, the Ministry for Ecological Transition has agreed to design and implement the Framework of Priority Actions for the Recovery of the Mar Menor, which has a total budget of 484.42 million euros, to make sure the protected natural ecosystem receives all the funds it needs and is due.
Image: CARM
