Mijas road protestors threaten to close roundabout if not paid

DRIVERS who regularly use the Carretera de Mijas face long delays if workers on the road are not paid soon. The men working on improvements of the Carretera de Mijas – which connects Fuengirola with Mijas Pueblo – are staging daily protests on the road. Profasan employees have not been paid around eight months worth of salary, workers estimates said.

Antonio Espejo, one of the protestors who has worked for the company for 12 years, said: “We have been here from 8am until 6pm every workday protesting for the last two weeks and will continue to do so until we are paid. Until now we have been passive, but if nothing is done then maybe we will close the roundabout.”

“It is a big inconvenience to motorists so I think they will have to listen. This is not a political move,” he said.

Around 40,000 people use this road daily, according to town hall estimates.

“We are not interested in politics; we just want to be paid. Besides, the politicians are not interested in what is going on here.”

“Manolo says that he has no money to pay us and no work to give us,” he added.

The average amount owed to workers is €14,000, although in some cases as much as €21,000 is outstanding, according to Jesus de la Cruz, a Profasan employee for 40-years.

“Some months we would get paid €300, others nothing, but always with the promise that we would eventually get paid; this never happened,” said Jesus.

The road works are a “big inconvenience” for Nicola Thompson who lives in Mijas and usually uses that road to take her daughter to school in Fuengirola.

Using the diverted routes it takes her “an extra 10-minutes depending on traffic”.

Traffic has been diverted away from a stretch of about a kilometre between Lidl’s and the petrol station.

Instead cars driving away from Fuengirola detour through Lagarejo urbanization, while those coming from Mijas must join the A.-7 at the roundabout above the toll road.

At this point the bridge that Profasan employees were renovating has been completely demolished, meaning that until work commences that road is completely impassable.

By Nicole Hallett