SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 20 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of the Popular Party of the Canary Islands, Manuel Domínguez, has assured this Tuesday that the representatives of his formation in the Congress of Deputies, Senate and Parliament of the Canary Islands will demand “forcefully”, and through various initiatives, that the commitments be fulfilled that the different administrations acquired during the recent eruption of the La Palma volcano to help the victims “and allow the reconstruction of the island as soon as possible”.
Domínguez maintains that, a year after this event, “it hurts” to see how the governments of Spain and the Canary Islands “take heart” from the management carried out, when they have not truly solved the “complicated present of the palmeros”.
Along these lines, he indicated that “regardless of the politics and propaganda of the central and regional executives, the objective should be none other than to ensure that hundreds of families who are still out of their homes recover the dignity of having a home in good conditions, which companies affected by the consequences of the eruption and those citizens who lost their businesses or their jobs have a horizon of hope and that palm farmers know with certainty what their future will be.
In this sense, the leader of the opposition in the Canary Islands insisted on the need to launch, and “urgently, a true recovery plan in which the different administrations participate, and also eliminate the current bureaucratic barriers that prevent acting quickly “.
Manuel Domínguez made these statements during his speech at a press conference to assess the situation of La Palma and the palmeros, one year after the volcanic eruption, held at the national headquarters of the Popular Party in Madrid and in which he was accompanied by the popular deputies for Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Ana Zurita and Sebastián Ledesma and senators Asier Antona and Borja Pérez Sicilia.
The deputy spokesman for the Popular Group in the Upper House, Asier Antona, criticized the “lack of sensitivity” of the central Executive in rejecting an amendment by the PP to the General State Budgets (PGE) requesting a nominal item to help La Palma, ” denied by the socialist party and the groups that support the government”.
The senator lamented that “a year later, the wound caused by the eruption is still present in the daily life of thousands of citizens who have lost everything, who have not yet received a single euro, 7,000 affected who are still pending the commitment of the Autonomous Government, which announced an aid of up to 30,000 euros for those palm growers whose houses were buried by volcanic lava”.
ANTONA CRITICIZES THE “DESIDIA” OF THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT
The popular representative affirmed that, “before the laziness of the Government of Spain, Cáritas Diocesanas de Canarias continues to care for some 3,000 victims, 200 people continue to stay in hotels, houses of relatives or friends, caravans and even in garages”, and also criticized that the hotel accommodation expenses of many people affected by the eruption are paid by the Cabildo de La Palma, “due to the inaction of the Government of Sánchez, which, from the beginning, promised to pay them”.
The deputy spokesman for the PP in the Senate lamented that the central Executive has “turned its back” on the primary and tourism sectors, on which thousands of jobs on the island depend.
“It promised to cover 100% of the damaged hectares and provide incentives for connectivity. The truth is that farmers are still waiting, without having received a single penny, and in the tourism sector, reservations have fallen by 40%, and 15 weekly flights to the island have been cancelled, this is the reality of unfulfilled commitments,” Antona denounced.
Borja Pérez Sicilia denied that the Sánchez Executive had contributed 50 million euros to carry out cleaning tasks on the island, with the companies that carry out this work having to bear the cost.
“That the governments of Spain and the Canary Islands do not attend to the reality of La Palma is taking a serious social and economic toll that compromises the present and future of the palm growers,” he concluded.
