SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 21 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Council of the Government of the Canary Islands has authorized an item of 57.5 million euros in two lines of subsidies to finance public land transport during the year 2022.
The objective is to promote and guarantee the operability of the road passenger transport system in the archipelago in the current situation of uncertainty caused by the high price of fuel, according to the regional Executive.
Likewise, the Ministry has streamlined the procedures for these two subsidies, one state and one regional, to transfer them to the councils and from there to the island bus and tram operators, and allow them to face the situation of vulnerability with more guarantees and liquidity. caused by the fuel crisis.
For its part, the Government, in coordination with the councils, encourages and promotes public transport by allocating an item of 47.5 million euros corresponding to the annual State subsidy, collected in the REF, which is used to finance land transport of the community.
It is an annual subsidy that is usually paid in the second half of the year and that the Ministry has expedited several months to transfer it to the island councils, since it is these institutions that have been delegated the powers in regular land transport so that these distribute them among the operators of each island.
However, in the case of the island of Tenerife, the powers are divided between the Cabildo and the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council, which is why the allocation for this island is also divided into two.
CANARY RESIDENT BONUS
Meanwhile, within this item approved this Thursday by the Governing Council there is also the subsidy corresponding to the Canary Resident Bonus, endowed with 10 million euros financed by the Autonomous Community’s own funds to strengthen the sector.
With this endowment, the Executive guarantees the operability of the public transport system and, given the current increase in fuel prices, adds another economic support to the sector. The discount known as the Canary Resident Bonus, in addition to encouraging the use of public transport by the population, promotes the use of information technologies in bus and tram operators.
The contribution of the Government of the Canary Islands to the island councils through this Resident Bonus is distributed as follows: the councils of Gran Canaria and Tenerife will receive an endowment of four million euros each, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and La Palma 500,000 euros and Finally, El Hierro will have 250,000 euros for this annual exercise.
With this autonomous drive for sustainable mobility, regular urban and interurban passenger transport companies, both in buses and trams, will be able to use this subsidy to finance operating expenses and to guarantee the bonuses of the Canary Resident Bonus on each Island.
Finally, this package of measures is raised to the Governing Council when the departure of some of the islands exceeds two million euros, for which the authorization of the Governing Council is required, according to Law 6/2021, of December 28 , from PGCAC 2022.
