News November, 15th 2009 by Simon Schönbeck

Marbella Mayoress Slams Water Scams

Glamorous campaigner against corruption attacks the deals by which water supplier Acosol has profited and demands reforms.

“Incompetence, wrong-doing and cronyism” are just three of the accusations hurled against the PSOE and its dealing with Acosol by Angeles Muñoz this week. Señora Muñoz is a leading Conservative politician on the Costa del Sol, serving currently both as the Mayoress of Marbella and as an elected member of the Junta de Andalucia, the regional parliament.

It was in this latter forum that 49-year-old Señora Muñoz launched her scathing attack. Famous throughout Andalucia as a campaigner against corruption in government, the blonde Ms Muñoz had Jose Bernal in her sights on Thursday 12 November when she rose to speak. Señor Bernal is the Secretary-General of Marbella´s PSOE (the Spanish Labour Party).

Señora Muñoz started by directing a question to Cinta Castillo, the regional councillor with responsibility for the Environment. Brandishing her copy of a report into the structure of Acosol, Señora Muñoz demanded to know about “anomalies” and “undue influence wielded by the unions”. Acosol is a public company supplying water to homes and businesses in the western Costa del Sol (Estepona, San Pedro and Marbella).

In her strongly-worded speech, Ms Muñoz accused the local Labour Party of “blatant bias” , adding that regional politicians were under a duty to “supervise the accounts of the water authority”, and had no business “using public companies to line their own pockets”.

In reply, Señor Bernal asked her to “answer, yes or no, whether or not it is a fact that Marbella City Hall gets 43 centimos out of every euro earned by Acosol”. He accused Ms Muñoz of “having converted the finances of Acosol into something of a personal obsession”.

The report on which she relied, he added, had been produced by a right-wing think tank. “That report is in no sense an audit,” added Señor Bernal, “but in so far as it highlights some errors which have occurred as Acosol has expanded rapidly, we will of course address our minds to putting them right.”