Yes We Can Canarias, a group that supports the PSOE and Ciudadanos island government team from outside, yesterday declined to comment on the controversy over the distribution of direct aid to municipalities. About 16 million euros that “will benefit the PSOE Town Councils”, according to the island mayors who reject this “fingerprint” distribution. The purple political force refers to a press conference that will take place next Monday to assess the accounts for 2022. However, the group has already made a public statement on the figure of the nominative subsidy, which it rejects and intends to reduce because In the words of its spokesperson, María José Belda, “it is a practice that should be the exception and not the rule.” Thus, a motion of his in the Plenary Committee last October was approved for Intervention to oversee the model. Yes We Can Canarias then received the support of CC and PP, as well as the rejection of PSOE and Cs.
“From now on,” Belda pointed out then, the Intervention “will carry out an audit prior to the modification of the bases of execution of the insular budget to create new nominative grants or increase the amount of existing ones ”. For Sí Podemos Canarias “it is thus guaranteed that this class of subsidies has a report on excessive use or not, and if the condition of exceptionality is met, the purpose for which they are created.” María José Belda detailed that this proposal, rejected by the government group, arose after verifying that “the formula is still being used to award grants directly and finance projects, as had been done in the previous mandate with Canary Coalition».
“This practice should be the exception and not the rule, as it has been used up to now”
The spokesperson for Sí Podemos Canarias understood that “with the situation generated by the Covid-19 it has been necessary to guarantee resources through this formula ». But he also recalled that there are “projects with years within this umbrella to receive financial contributions without justifying their exceptionality or calling for free competition.” This modification ensured “having the margin to listen to the technical opinion of Intervention and make an informed decision.”
The counselor highlighted to conclude that in the programmatic agreements with the PSOE at the beginning of the mandate, “we agreed that the model of nominative subsidies be reviewed in order to adapt it to a more transparent and guaranteeing system of equal access to public financing ”.
