SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Nov. 19 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The spokesperson for the Canary Nationalist Group, José Miguel Barragán, announced this Friday the amendment to the entire 2022 regional budgets and demonstrated that they are not the instrument of political and economic action that the islands need to start the recovery.
As he explained, the Government trusts the success of its management to the fact that the abundance of resources means a good budget, good governance, “and that is a mistake to which the quadripartite pact formed by PSOE, NC, Podemos and ASG is getting used to” .
The Canarian Nationalist Group recognizes that it is important to have more resources to strengthen the basic policies of the Government and undertake new actions, “but this is not what should be valued as the main element in some budgets.”
“It is more important to verify if they are consistent with the socioeconomic situation in which they want to develop, if they are prudent in their income expectations, as well as if they are correct in the policies that the Government prioritizes for said annuity,” he said.
Thus, he warned of an “imbalance” between the maintenance of basic services and the necessary boost that the economy requires to generate employment. “It is the latter that must be encouraged with fiscal and economic measures so that they can contribute to the recovery,” he said.
All this bearing in mind that the scenario in the coming months “is uncertain”, at a time when the volcanic eruption on the island of La Palma requires extraordinary economic and financial resources.
If the most negative situation were to occur, he said, “the Government would not be prepared to face it, it is incomprehensible that despite the uncertainty that is characterizing these times, there is no prudence, prevention or foresight.”
In his opinion, “it will not be the budgets of the comeback as they baptized those of 2021 or those of ‘Growing Together’ as it has occurred to them to baptize those of 2022”.
Among those risks that loom over the present and the near future are inflation; a pandemic situation with dangers of new waves of contagion; an increase in raw materials, energy prices and freight rates that will affect consumption and industrial production and which will also lead to rising prices, such as drinking water.
SERIOUS DEFICIENCIES
On the other hand, he pointed out that the condition of the Canary Islands as an outermost region “multiplies” the effects of these risks, so it is also necessary to work on the deployment and updating of the potential of the REF.
“Deficiencies that we consider serious and that are due to improvisation and the inability to manage most of its teams during these almost three years of the Legislature and to breaches such as that of the Social and Economic Reactivation Plan of the Canary Islands,” he commented.
Thus, he said that only some policies of the Reactive Plan are present in the budgets of three of the ten government ministries.
In this sense, Barragán recalled that the Government of Ángel Víctor Torres always appeals to unity and there “he will find” CC but that will not mean “not working to find a better way out of the crisis and applaud or hide incompetence.”
In the case of the consequences of the volcanic eruption on La Palma, he stressed that the objective has been from the first moment “to work together, propose initiatives” and in this amendment to the totality they propose how the items should be integrated in order to attend to the emergency and the recovery of the island “in a more effective way.”
Instead, he commented that the Government’s solution has been to not budget for specific resources in 2022 for the recovery, but to take it to a credit possibility – up to 100 million euros – without being specified in the budget. “They are insufficient and lack a long-term projection,” he stressed.
Likewise, the spokesman pointed out that multi-year plans are necessary to guarantee the actions of the administrations on the island for years to be able to give life back to those who have lost everything. “And this is what we propose in this amendment,” explained José Miguel Barragán.
STATE
Canary-State relations and the lack of work and firmness of the Government of the islands in defending the interests of the islands also affect the Canary Islands public accounts.
“In the archipelago we suffer from serious problems that are not solved by the lack of leadership of President Torres and in his management the funds that correspond to us as an Autonomous Community are affected,” the spokesman warned.
Thus, he highlighted the dangers that loom in the future negotiation of the autonomous financing system and its effect on the REF; the “rudeness and abandonment” in the face of migratory care; the “constant violation” of the REF in the state budgets; the agreements that are not signed; non-compliance with the sentence on the highway agreement or the negotiations of transfers based on the new Statute, among others.
“We have seen many visits from the president and his ministers but we also need facts and help, as is the case of La Palma, and more attention to work on improving the response on immigration, but we do not see any interest in the Government of Sánchez; this also affects the Canary accounts, “he commented.
Barragán concluded by referring to the “scarce credibility” of the budgets also with regard to the own income within the so-called block of resources of the REF, the loss of weight in public investment by the autonomous administration in the Canary Islands, the “oblivion “to which the municipalities have been subjected or the budget failure that the government itself expects to amount to 150 million euros this year, according to its economic report.
