A Spanish civil servant got paid a salary for years while not actually showing up to work.

Joaquin Garcia, 69, began working as an engineer for the Cadiz council in western Spain in 1990, but was posted to its municipal water board in 1996.

However, in 2010, when Mr Garcia was set to receive a long-service award, the man who hired him, deputy mayor Jorge Blas Fernandez, found he wasn’t at the water authority he had been posted to, where workers thought he was still at the council.

Mr Fernandez had reportedly been responsible for Mr Garcia’s move to the public water authority.

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Upon the deputy mayor’s investigation into the water authority, its former manager told Mr Fernandez he had not seen Garcia for several years, despite having the office opposite where he was meant to be.

“He was still on the payroll,” Mr Fernandez told el Mundo. “I thought, where is this man? Is he still there? Has he retired? Has he died?”

“They assumed he had been sent back to city hall,” Mr Fernández said.

Mr Fernandez called Mr Garcia into a meeting.

“I asked him: ‘what are you doing? What did you do yesterday? And the previous month?’ He could not answer.”

A court found that Garcia had done no work for “at least six years” and had done “absolutely no work” between 2007 and 2010, The Guardian reported. Mr Garcia retired in 2010.

Mr Garcia now has fans on the internet.

everybody give it up for joaquin garcia pic.twitter.com/Z1IgK1rQ8s

— whacklemore (@Ina_Garden) February 14, 2016

Joaquin Garcia, Spanish civil servant. Successfully skipped work for 6 yrs before anyone noticed. Somebody give this guy a ministership!

— Altimet (@altimet) February 13, 2016

Garcia was fined $A42,505 for his offence, the equivalent of one year’s salary after tax.

The engineer told the court he had turned up to the office, admittedly not at regular business hours, but that he was a victim of workplace bullying.

The tribunal found that the council had thought Garcia was working for the water board, and that the water board thought Garcia was still working at the council.

Friends of Garcia told el Mundo he did not want to report the harassment because he had a family to support and feared he would lose his job. He reportedly visited a psychiatrist.

He claimed the staff and the council had targeted him because of his family’s extreme political views.

What he did instead

During his time off, Garcia reportedly spent most of his time reading the philosophy of Spinoza, a Dutch philosopher who was a seminal figure in the Enlightenment.

Spanish newspapers have dubbed Mr Garcia as “el funcionario fantasma” – the phantom official.

Bizarrely, Mr Garcia had filed a counter claim against Mr Fernandez saying it was his responsibility to ensure he had been working.

“It was up to Mr Fernandez to make sure that this did not happen,” he said.

Mr Garcia has asked the council if he could be pardoned in paying the fine.

Unemployment in Cadiz is above the national average of 34 per cent while the average salary in Spain is just under $A30,000.