The VOX Manilva Municipal Group has denounced the serious shortage of personnel and equipment at the town’s main Guardia Civil post, a situation it says is encouraging the spread of drug trafficking in the municipality and across the western Costa del Sol. After meeting AUGC Málaga, Antonio Marín warns that the Manilva Guardia Civil station has fewer than 30 officers, the minimum for a main post.
The VOX spokesman at Manilva Town Hall, Antonio Marín, held a meeting on Monday with representatives of AUGC Málaga to learn first-hand about the reality faced by the officers responsible for combating drug trafficking in the area. After the meeting, Marín stated that the Guardia Civil officers «have been completely abandoned by the Ministry of the Interior in their fight against drug trafficking».
According to what the professional association told VOX, the Manilva main post does not currently have the personnel needed to hold that status under suitable conditions. According to the information presented during the meeting, for a station to be considered a main post it must have between 30 and 40 officers, whereas Manilva currently has only 26.
For VOX, this shortage of staff demonstrates the neglect of the Ministry of the Interior in an area particularly hard hit by the activity of drug trafficking mafias. «The Ministry of the Interior, through its inaction and neglect, is allowing Manilva to be the nerve centre of drug trafficking on the whole Costa del Sol«, Marín has said.
The municipal spokesman also warned that the officers suffer not only from an obvious shortage of personnel, but also from a worrying lack of equipment to face an increasingly violent threat. In this regard, he pointed out that the Guardia Civil officers «do not have the necessary equipment to confront drug traffickers who carry weapons of war» and also do not have enough boats to neutralise the narco-boats that operate and take refuge off the coast.
VOX also stressed that there are currently only two boats for the whole Málaga coastline, a figure it considers clearly insufficient, as it believes there should be at least four to be able to respond effectively to the pressure of drug trafficking on the coast.
Added to this situation, according to Marín, is the poor service to the public at the Manilva main post itself, which currently only operates in the mornings, even though this type of facility should be open both in the morning and in the afternoon.
«Manilva being a main post is only for publicity. There is a lack of equipment and personnel to combat the drug trafficking that has taken over the municipality and the western Costa del Sol», Antonio Marín asserted.
The VOX Manilva Municipal Group will continue to publicly denounce this «dramatic and dangerous» situation, believing that the Government’s abandonment of the State Security Forces is putting the municipality’s residents at risk.
«We are going to keep raising our voice because it is the people of Manilva who are in danger due to the abandonment suffered by our State Security Forces in their fight against the savage drug traffickers», Marín concluded.
