The new president of Castilla-La Mancha, Maria Dolores de Cospedal, may find some uncomfortable surprises when she takes over for socialist Jose María Barreda. The Regional Budget Office has discovered several anomalies in its latest reports, as many in public contracts carried out by the regional government as in their own accounts.
Although the reports have been completed (the last one was published last Monday), the analysis shows that the 2006 and 2008 governments were responsible for the erroneous contracts and the accounting issues, respectively.
According to how regional governments billed and budget for the contracts, the CLM government, its autonomous organizations and SESCAM (a regional public health care system) signed a total of 3,451 agreements for a total of 1,142 million euros.
One of the first things that caught the budget office´s attention was how some government councils awarded contracts without announcing them and allowing for fair competition. In total, 40% of the government contracts were handpicked.
Edited in English by Brandon Dyches and Jose L. De Haro (joseluisdeharo@eleconomista.es)
