MÉS per Mallorca has accused the president of the Consell de Mallorca, Llorenç Galmés, of covering up the vice president of the institution, Pedro Bestard, in light of new information about expenses for vehicle rentals during official trips. The party considers it an "unjustifiable" use of public resources.

It has been circulating for years. And there are already many rulings, appeals, statements of facts, reports, and a large amount of official documentation. And it is not the first time we have encountered a complicated case because a public official clearly abuses their position.

MÉS per Mallorca has demanded this Thursday the urgent appearance of the president of the Consell de Mallorca, Llorenç Galmés, to explain what measures he intends to adopt following the conclusions of the internal reports on the use of official vehicles by the insular vice-president, Pedro Bestard, as disseminated by the party through a statement.

The Consell de Mallorca does not find "any notable relevance" in the private use of the island institution's cars by the vice president of Vox, Pedro Bestard. To reach this conclusion, it has been necessary to wait weeks, until the two reports commissioned by president Llorenç Galmés were completed. The first was carried out by the Technical Secretariat of the Department of Environment and states that Bestard still keeps three cars for his exclusive use, that he lied about their signage and that he has made unjustified use of them unrelated to his position, in addition to keeping them to the detriment of the needs of the officials in his area. The second report was carried out by the General Secretariat and the Council's Intervention, and it is precisely this one that indicates that it cannot be deduced that the use of the cars is improper. This document is limited to recommending that an instruction be issued to regulate the use of Council vehicles.

Bestard has three cars for his exclusive use, while his department has 19 unused ones and suffers the consequences of an aging fleet that urgently needs renovation. This is one of the conclusions in the report by the Technical Secretariat of Environment of the insular institution, which highlights the inappropriate use of cars by Bestard, to which ARA Balears has had access. A Dacia Sandero (acquired at the end of 2023), a Ford Ranger (2024), and a Subaru Crosstrek (2026) are the three cars that the vice-president of the Consell de Mallorca has arrogated to himself, even though he can use an official car for his travel. In fact, the document points out that, in the case of the Dacia, only Bestard has the keys and that on one occasion he lost them (this incident involved an expense of 430 euros).

The controversy over the use of public cars by the second vice-president of the Consell de Mallorca, Pedro Bestard (Vox), has brought to light voices that warn that the practice is not anecdotal among workers. Bestard himself admitted last Thursday that he never kept a record of which car he took or the route he took. “I didn't know it had to be done”, he justified: “The staff themselves don't do it”. According to the testimony of four workers from the island institution [who requested anonymity], it is “known” that some public employees take advantage of a lack of exhaustive control of vehicles to use them in their private lives. They specify this in two areas: Environment (led by Bestard) and Roads (dependent on Territory). “Some don't even have their own car, they use the one from work”, explains one of them.

The second vice-president of the Consell de Mallorca, Pedro Bestard, appeared this Thursday before the Transparency Commission of the Consell de Mallorca to give explanations on the use he has made of two vehicles of the island institution. But, beyond denying personal use, Bestard has not provided any concrete information. He has explained, however, that his department is scattered throughout the island and that this forces him to travel. "If I go from Manacor to Alcudia and I have to stop to eat in Ses Torres, I will stop. Or in Es Cruce," he said at one point during his speech, during which he did not clarify whether he ordered the vehicles to be left unlabeled, nor the routes, nor the kilometers traveled, nor why two Consell cars have also been seen spending the night in front of his house. On this occasion, Bestard arrived at the Consell in an official car with a chauffeur and demanded that, once the reports commissioned by President Llorenç Galmés are released, the left-wing parties apologize to him. "I want them to apologize to me publicly," he snapped at the PSOE spokesperson, Catalina Cladera.

Pedro Bestard ordered that one of the new vehicles acquired by the Department of Environment of the Consell de Mallorca be reserved for him and that it not be labeled as an official car of the institution. "This car, reserve it for me," sources familiar with the matter confirm that Bestard said, who would be responsible for not labeling it.

The Consell de Mallorca will conduct two reports to ascertain whether the vice-president of the insular institution, Pedro Bestard, has misused the institution's official cars, using them for party events and private matters. As ARA Balears has learned, one will be prepared by the Secretary General of the Consell and the other by the Technical Secretariat of the Department of Environment. But there will be a third report: the one that the president of the Consell, Llorenç Galmés, requested from Bestard this Monday, after meeting with him to demand explanations. Galmés has also demanded that he immediately label the vehicles with the Consell de Mallorca logo and that they return to General Riera every day, where they must spend the nights.

MÉS per Mallorca on Sunday called for the resignation of the Vice President of the Consell de Mallorca, Pedro Bestard (Vox), following the publication of information pointing to an alleged irregular use of official vehicles of the institution for personal travel and party activities.

The governing coalition of the Consell de Mallorca, made up of the PP and Vox parties, is beginning to take steps to fulfill one of its major electoral promises: to allow the hunt on public estates. This Tuesday, the island council conducted a pilot test on the Tossals Verds and Son Fortuny estates with the aim of "evaluating the recovery of hunting activity in these areas," as explained by the council in a statement. The island council assured that "no incidents related to the public use of the estates were detected, and it has been demonstrated that hunting is fully compatible with hiking and other recreational uses." For his part, the vice president of the island council and also the councilor for the Environment, Rural Affairs, and Sports, Pedro Bestard, emphasized that the pilot test "seeks to reintegrate land management with activities that have been part of the rural reality of the estates." He insisted that the initiative "has reflected the successful coexistence between hunting and other recreational uses."