The Popular Party in the Cabildo denounces that The Island Corporation “has cut 50% of investment in municipal cooperation since 2019”. Manuel Fernández, deputy spokesman for the popular, also anticipates that “the 2022 budget project reveals that the Socialist Party takes the path of turning its back on municipalism, causing it to cease to be the institution of reference on the Island” .
Fernández emphasizes that “The PSOE has not only reduced the investment budget in this area globally”, but is also delayed in the execution of the Cooperation Plans, “Which favors the already serious deficiencies that Tenerife has in matters as important as sanitation.”
The calculations of the Popular Party indicate that “real investments in the field of Municipal Cooperation have decreased by 40% from 2021 to 2022, and the aforementioned 50% from 2019 to 2022”. This would indicate ‘the scant interest of the Council when it comes to facing important challenges such as wastewater treatment together with the Town Councils ”.
“The PSOE maintains the path of turning its back on municipalism in the accounts for 2022”
Punctual descent.
In the process of analyzing the draft budgets for 2022 proposed by the island government, real investments in the field of municipal cooperation fall from 12.8 million euros in 2021 to 7.7 million for the next fiscal year, «what that supposes a cut of 40% in only one year ”, points Fernández. Although, he adds, “the situation worsens if we look at it with perspective, since in 2019, 14 million were allocated to investment in this area, so the reduction since then has risen to 50% ». Fernández recalls that “this money is mainly destined to issues related to sanitation, which on the other hand, is one of the pending issues that Tenerife has”.
Continued decline.
The popular councilor defends that “since the Socialist Party presides over the Cabildo, the Municipal Cooperation and Housing area has seen its contributions diminish year after year”, to which he adds that “it is a circumstance that worsens if we consider the situation of Municipal Cooperation programs, which since 2014 are in the hands of Socialist councilors, which are systematically delayed. A proof of this, he values, “is that we should currently be finalizing the execution of the second cooperation plan (2018-2021) and witnessing the start of the new 2022-2026 plan -for which there is not even a project before-“. However, “the reality is that projects of the first plan, whose validity was limited to the period 2014-2017, are still pending completion.”
“Neglect”.
For Manuel Fernández, the situation described is a «clear proof of the carelessness with which the Socialist Party addresses such an important issue for Tenerife such as sanitation ”, since these are items aimed fundamentally at improving this aspect, which is materialized thanks to agreements agreed with the Island’s municipalities, through which the Cabildo contributes 80% and the municipalities 20% of your sanitation projects. “Both the reduction in investment and the delay in the execution of the plans are detrimental to the needs to improve sanitation”, assures Fernández, who emphasizes that “these are investments whose objective is that the wastewater has the treatment adequate, instead of being dumped directly into the subsoil ». The popular councilor summarizes: “The budget project that the PSOE intends to approve is disappointing for the municipal government of Tenerife, to which the Cabildo definitely turns its back.” And he concludes: “It can be seen in cuts like this and in arbitrary and sectarian decisions such as the distribution of direct nominative subsidies.”
