The Orihuela PSOE spokeswoman, Carolina Grace, has requested the resignation of the mayor Emilio Bascuñana after new information came to light regarding his claims to have worked for the Conselleria de Sanidad in Alicante between 2007 and 2014. According to a report released by the Ministry of Health there is no evidence that the Orihuela mayor did any work during the period, although he received 55,000 euros per year.
The report published by the digital newspaper Diario.es reveals the existence of three different reports that certify that during the 7 year period in question the PP alderman was without any form of a job.
These are reports prepared by the territorial health directorate in Alicante, by the Department of Human Resources of Conselleria and by the Health Department of Orihuela. In each of them it is noted that “there is no record of the presence, or the employment, of Emilio Bascuñana.”
Given this new information the opposition Socialist party has demanded that Bascuñana resign his position as Mayor “because you cannot continue to let time pass or make empty excuses.” “I ask him again to resign because of the loyalty he should have to the people of Orihuela.” Gracia pointed out that these three reports “only confirm what we already knew”.
The spokesman of Cambiemos Orihuela, Karlos Bernabé, also said that “these reports do not reveal anything new, but they only confirm that something smells rotten with regard to Emilio Bascuñana.”
Bernabé has said that “we know that he will not resign, that’s why we call on the people of Orihuela, regardless of their political beliefs, to make their feelings known regarding the situation surrounding the mayor”.
The PP spokesman, Rafael Almagro, who has the responsibility of responding to this new information, has said that the “mayor is firm and is calm” stating that “it is completely wrong that this information is in possession of people other than the interested party “. In this regard the PP is “disgusted” to hear of these reports from the media before Emilio Bascuñana himself has had any information of them.
Almagro does not give any credibility to the documents prepared by the three different government organisations “because I know perfectly the professional career of Emilio Bascuñana and I know that he is a man of dedication and honour and that he has worked wherever the work has been assigned”.
Meanwhile the spokeswoman of the parliamentary group Compromís in Les Corts, Mireia Mollà, has put her weight behind calls for the mayor’s resignation saying “The three reports confiming that Bascuñana received a salary from the department of health without working, don’t allow him to remain as the mayor of Orihuela.” “After such strong evidence of the impropriety in Bascuñana’s political career and of his flagrant lies in this murky affair he has no choice but to resign.”
“We are facing a fraudulent situation that Bascuñana has not been able to explain, ” Mollà added, “and which politically disables him from continuing to hold any public office. Given the refusal to assume his responsibilities and resign the responsibility must now fall on the Popular Party, which has the obligation to dismiss the mayor of Orihuela from his position.
As long as they do not act in this matter, both the president of the PP, Pablo Casado, and the leader of the party in the Valencian Community, Isabel Bonig will be accomplices in condoning the indecency that continues to soil the image of Orihuela. ”
On Wednesday the mayor broke his silence by publicly denouncing what he describes as “A media lynching that is being carried out against me,” saying that he intends to take legal action so that the Ministry of Health will send him all the information on the matter, justify why it has violated data protection by releasing the information to the press, and to do what it has to do to clear up these false accusations.
The mayor has also said that to date “I have had no official nor unofficial communication from the Department of Health about the opening of the investigation nor any document regarding the reports that have been issued and that concern me directly.” He went on, however, to detail how in the three published reports the information released is contradictory,
