SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 1 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The spokesperson for the Mixed Group in the Parliament of the Canary Islands, Vidina Espino, has proposed that, once the legislature ends, the money that the parliamentary groups have not spent can be donated to non-profit entities that carry out social work of first need, such as the Food Bank, and also victims of natural disasters in the Canary Islands.
The deputy has announced at a press conference that she will present an amendment to the Regulations that will leave the final decision on the destination of those funds that have not been spent in the hands of the Permanent Deputation. “It will be a decision taken by the Chamber and not by each group individually,” she clarified.
If this amendment is approved, Vidina Espino has indicated that the Mixed Group could donate 200,000 euros to those affected by the La Palma volcano. “And we may still have some more savings that we could allocate to the Food Bank, although we will know that at the end of the legislature,” she pointed out.
Espino wanted to recall that this saving has been possible due to “austere and responsible management of public resources” and has valued the action of his Group colleague, the deputy Ricardo Fernández de la Puente: “We manage the resources of the Mixed Group jointly and consensual and I want to value their responsibility and austerity in spending”. Although both have ended up on different political paths, Espino has highlighted and appreciated the cordiality, good harmony and understanding in the operation of the Mixed Group.
For this proposal to go ahead, the spokeswoman has asked for the support of all the parliamentary groups during its processing: “I believe that public money must go where it is most needed and return the money to Parliament so that it can later be spent on new armchairs or carpets is not the right thing”.
Espino has appealed to the conscience of the deputies to be able to make this donation when the legislature ends, now that the reform of the Regulation is opened, since that was the impediment that was alleged so that it was not made at the time. “Now we all have the opportunity to make this donation possible”, pointed out the deputy, who also insisted that it would be “a solidarity purpose to attend to basic needs of the canaries that we represent”,
Vidina Espino explained that according to the current Regulation, in point 29.2, parliamentary groups are obliged to return unspent funds at the end of the legislature.
“WORSE” THAN FOUR YEARS AGO.
The spokesperson for the Mixed Group regretted that it is in the last stretch of a legislature in which “far from advancing in improving the living conditions of the Canaries, we have regressed a lot”.
He pointed out that, in the Canary Islands, “today lives are worse than four years ago and public services also work worse”. “The public bubble has continued to increase with feasts paid for with public money, tripling spending on advisers, as Vice President Román Rodríguez has done or wasting Equality money on a party of perreo; all nonsense that the one in charge allows or should command, which is President Ángel Víctor Torres”, said Espino.
According to the parliamentarian, “while all this is happening with a government installed in frivolity, 47 percent of Canarian children live in a situation of poverty because their parents do not have a job or if they do, it is a precarious job that does not allow them to pay the most fundamental bills: housing, purchases, electricity… and to all of them is added an exorbitant and unfair tax burden applied by this Government”.
REFORM OF THE REGULATION
“Because there are many difficulties that the canaries are going through”, the spokeswoman has made it clear that she cannot share that at this moment the priority of the Parliamentary Bureau is the reform of the Regulations of the Chamber to prolong the payment of the salaries of the deputies, once Parliament is dissolved to pay them compensation when the legislature ends or to protect by law that deputies raise their salaries every year based on the CPI.
Espino rejects all these proposals and hopes that the Mesa rectifies and does not go ahead with the reform in these terms. In any case, he believes that the reform of the Regulation “does open up an important opportunity to make a change that has to do with the possibility of putting the funds that are not spent to good use and that cements the proposal that he has announced today” .
Already in October 2021, Espino made a request to the Bureau to make a return of the funds that the Mixed Group did not spend for its operation and that Parliament could donate that money, 200,000 euros to those affected by the La Palma volcano. At that time this initiative was rejected, alleging that the Chamber’s Regulations did not allow it.
