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."