The Provincial Director of the State Public Employment Service (SEPE), Jorge Vera, has confirmed that the Government of the Autonomous City of Melilla has to return about 1.3 million euros from Phase 1 of this year’s ‘Programme Support for Women in Rural and Urban Areas in the Territorial Area of the City of Melilla’ for not having managed these funds.
As explained by the head of the Provincial Directorate of the SEPE, the Autonomous City, through Melilla S.A. Project (PROMETHEA), has managed an allocation of almost 3 million euros for Phase 1 of the aforementioned program. “In the call it is proposed to attend to some 1,545 women. However, the local government aims to care for about 1,200 women and reduce, as a goal, the labor insertion to less than 300 women,” he explained.
However, by the end of this phase, the local government has served about half of what had been targeted. “Of the 1,200 that were set as a target, slightly more than 700 women have attended and the number of insertion has been below 50% of the target,” he explained.
Something, he has clarified that it has happened because the Government of the Autonomous City, through the management of PROMISE, “do not request the number of offers sufficient to include them in the program and barely reach 50% of the goal set, not only at the level of incorporation into the program, but also of labor insertion.”
“Those who have not complied with the part of the program are the Autonomous City, so of the almost 3 million euros of the program about 1.3 million euros is returned to the Public Treasury,” he said.
“That money is lost because they haven’t managed it. This number of women has not been requested and the target has not been reached because either they have not been able to or have not had the infrastructure or they have not wanted to. What is clear is that it is the full responsibility of the awarding party, which is the Government of the Autonomous City,” he said.
In fact, the Provincial Director of the SEPE has pointed out that a few days ago the agreement was made to begin the procedure for the reimbursement of subsidies from the Public Service of State Employment, aimed at the financing of Investment 2 of Component 23 “Program of Support to Women in the Rural and Urban Areas” in the territorial area of the city of Melilla, within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, document which states that “after the total calculation to be liquidated: 2,906,610 euros - 1,610,245 euros, partial refund proposal report is issued in the amount of 1,296,365 euros”.
“That money is a lost money because they had to be managed by the awarding party, that is, the Autonomous City, through PROMISE, and it does not do so because not enough women are surveyed, who are less than half of them,” he said.
Thus, PROMETHEA did not request an offer sufficient to reach that number of women attended, which had to be almost 1,200 and was 728, and reach 230 women in employment and when they did not reach 200. “The local government returns 1.3 million euros for not having managed them, therefore, if we talk about ‘ignorance or lies’, Mrs. Donoso can boast of the two qualities,” he said in reference to the statements of the President of PROMETHEA.
Same errors
In fact, referring to Donoso’s statements, Vera explained that the program began in 2021 within the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. “This program was being implemented at the time for the first time because it was a fund of the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism (MRR) that was new in that year and had not yet been implemented anywhere in the national territory. That’s why they started at a slower pace than normal,” he said.
She also pointed out that the number of offers requested from SEPE at the time to select women “was significantly insufficient, as is happening in this year’s program, and many of them were rejected because, according to them, -in reference to the Autonomous City- they did not meet the requirements to participate.”
Vera has also made it clear that the offers to ask for counselors that have nothing to do with this Recovery Plan program, but is an offer that she made PROMISE to equip themselves with counselors who could contribute and help in the program, but who were not subsidized by SEPE.
Continuing with the clarifications, he also referred to the problems that occurred with the teachers, “because those who proposed did not meet the requirements of the didactic guide of SEPE, although, finally, the Central Services of the Public Service of State Employment enabled them, making the criteria more flexible.”
“What Mrs. Donoso has not said is that finally the SEPE and the Central Services allowed the modification of the concession resolution that, in addition, included the extension of execution time,” she said, so that they could finally be carried out.
However, none of this has anything to do with what is happening during this year, “since this program has been continuously developed from 2021 until now, and there have been different courses to have learned from the above,” he said. And yet, “the mistakes that are made are the same,” he lamented.