SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 10 Aug. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Canarian Coalition and Popular Party have demanded the president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Martín, and his government team to demand that the State apply the 100% discount to public transport on the Island, after the announcement made by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, that this discount will be made in the peninsular territory from September.
The deputy and secretary of the Organization of CC de Tenerife, Rosa Dávila, has accused the president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Martín, and the insular PSOE of not defending the interests of the island and its inhabitants by not demanding the 100% bonus of buses and trams in the Usla, just as other councils have done in the Archipelago such as those of Gran Canaria, La Gomera or Fuerteventura.
The nationalist leader described as “incomprehensible” that the Cabildo de Tenerife and its president justify this “offense” of the Government of Spain with Tenerife and the Canary Islands and that “they are not capable of fighting for the interests of the people of Tenerife for the simple fact of not raise your voice to Ángel Víctor Torres and to his bosses in Madrid”.
For Dávila, that Pedro Martín does not request free buses and trams “is just another example that Tenerife is not the same since the PSOE governs.” “The Island is lagging behind, it has lost competitiveness and there is a clear loss of political, economic and social weight due to a clear lack of political leadership,” he said.
“The loss of leadership and the null political weight of Pedro Martín, with his submission and silence before the PSOE, makes Tenerife stay behind”, lamented the deputy, who urged the unity of all the councils and municipalities of Tenerife and of Canary Islands to demand the same treatment for the Islands with the transport bonus, since it is a “real offense” and a “total injustice” that 100% of transport is financed on the Peninsula, while in the Archipelago “only at 50% of the bonus”.
“It is shameful to see how a president of Tenerife does not raise his voice against this type of decision and simply adopts a position of silence so as not to anger his bosses,” Dávila lamented.
For his part, the general secretary of the Tenerife nationalists, Francisco Linares, showed his total rejection of the approach of the Government of the Canary Islands and Ángel Víctor Torres so that the councils and, above all, the municipalities have to implement part of the transport bonus . “It is already what the city councils lacked,” criticized Linares, who assured that local corporations “do not have the power to do that.”
Francisco Linares recalled that the municipalities of Tenerife and the Canary Islands “have been making an enormous effort for more than two years with expenses and investments due to the pandemic and we are still waiting for the Municipal Reconstruction Fund of the Government of the Canary Islands.” “What the Government of the Canary Islands and Ángel Víctor Torres have to do is demand from the Government of Pedro Sánchez something that is fair, and that is a 100% discount on tram and bus transport on the Islands,” Linares asserted.
“We cannot be second-class citizens facing the Peninsula. If they have free trains there, the buses should be free here too,” he said.
“HIDDEN AND DUMB”
On this issue, the popular councilor Manuel Fernández has also spoken, denouncing that Pedro Martín “is hidden and mute in the face of the social and political debate that has led to the decision of the National Executive to leave the Canary Islands out, and therefore Tenerife, of the discount announced for public transport in the country”.
“In the Popular Party we are clear that if the State finances commuter trains in Spain, and taking into account that the Canary Islands do not have trains, we have to demand equal treatment with our community from the institutions, applying this bonus to buses, as the only means of public transport in our archipelago, and always from the perspective that it is necessary to guarantee that Canarian citizens in general, and Tenerife residents in particular, have the same rights as citizens of the peninsula and the Balearic Islands,” said Manuel Fernández.
“While the governments of other islands openly demand from the State Government an initiative similar to the one announced in the Canary Islands, the Cabildo de Tenerife and the Government of the Canary Islands maintain a shameful and submissive silence, which reveals a lack of leadership that seriously harms the the canaries and the people of Tenerife,” said Fernández.
The popular councilor stressed that it is not the first time that Pedro Martín “folds before partisan interests, leaving the general interest of citizens for later”, recalling that also in the field of mobility, as was the case of the south, the president of the Cabildo “preferred to remain silent in the face of the demands of the political group that supports him in the government (Podemos), refusing to publicly defend the need to promote the southern train project”.
On the other hand, Manuel Fernández recalled that it was the Popular Party that proposed an initiative in the last debate on the state of the island, held last April, to discount public transport for people over 65, university students and patients. hospitable, with a double objective: to alleviate the collapse of Tenerife’s roads at rush hours and to promote the use of public transport in a very difficult economic context for families, due to inflation and the economic crisis.
Manuel Fernández stressed that all the groups supported this initiative, but during the last plenary session, and after verifying that not a single measure had been carried out to implement the plenary agreement, the Popular Party asked a question to find out the level of execution of the initiative. “Vice President Arriaga’s response was that this was unfeasible for not being able to discriminate based on users’ income level, something that does not seem to matter now, when he requests in the media that the State subsidize 100% of public transport,” Fernandez recalled.
“The island government’s way of acting reveals a worrying absence of ideas and a roadmap in an area as sensitive as mobility, as well as a lack of credibility and leadership that could have serious consequences for our society at a critical economic time like the current one,” said the counselor.
