Calls for Matas to resign over 4.9m euro house purchase

Antoni Diéguez, spokesman for the Socialist Group in Parliament said that Matas should resign if he could not justify how he is meeting payments for the house.

He claimed that Matas would have to rule for 58 years in order to pay the costs of purchasing the building, which he estimated at 4.9 million euros.
Diéguez said that Matas should give explanations about the purchase, pointing out that his income, made public in 2005, was 70'000 euros, the annual salary of the government leader. He added that the 900'000 euros received by Matas for the sale of his old home would not cover the total cost of the mansion in Palma's Calle San Feliu.

Deputy leader Rosa Estaras rejected the accusations, claiming that the government's performance had been based on “responsibility, respecting the law, converting honesty into its banner, building fast, safe roads, and recovering tourism.” She rejected Diéguez's speech as “a Kafka-esque interpretation and an absurd tactic.” She in turn accused Diéguez of lack of ethics for combining his activity as a lawyer with that of deputy and benefiting some of his clients with information obtained through parliamentary questions.

She also called on him to justify his patrimony, which, she claimed, comprises three houses, a yacht and a BMW.
She said that the Partido Popular wanted to practice “zero tolerance” with corruption, although she added that “there is corruption in all the parties and all persons, as it is a phenomenon which has existed since before the Romans.”