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The Audit Office, or SCIB says it wants to take more control over extrajudicial bills generated by Municipalities in the Balearic Islands, which basically means that some services or works are commissioned directly from a supplier, without a prior tender to get the best possible price.

Auditors in each Municipality require that each extrajudicial bill that's approved, bears the identification of the person who authorised it, as stated in the "Report 194/2021 on the internal control of the local public sector in the Balearic Islands and the extrajudicial recognitions of credit for the year 2019”.

The Audit Office recommends that extrajudicial recognitions of credit be approved by the plenary and should not be delegated for the sake of greater transparency, but delegation is not expressly prohibited.

Extrajudicial bills are common in most Administrations and there are Municipalities where they come up for debate in every plenary as is the case in Muro.

In August, the opposition UiM denounced the fact that in the first six months of 2021, the Government team had spent 919,440 euros on this concept and called it “an abuse of minor contracts (under 18,000 euros) and invoices without funds.

“We regret the hypocrisy of UiM, which approved extrajudicial bills and now criticises them, when it is perfectly legal and inevitable for many reasons,” said a Government spokesperson.

One of the reasons extrajudicial invoices are generated is the lack of tenders for certain services and the food for the Nursing Home in Muro is one such example.

"It is impossible to buy bread in local bakeries, vegetables in the cooperative or meat from the village butcher, you have to wait for a company in Palma to win the tender then distribute it.”