SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 8 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The spokesperson for the Mixed Group, Vidina Espino, has accused the Vice President of the Government of the Canary Islands and Minister of Finance, Budgets and European Affairs, Román Rodríguez, of the “astonishing” and “spectacular” increase of 200% that the funds directed to the tasks of technical and political assistance to the vice president.
However, Román Rodríguez has assured that this is “false” and “those who say that the advisors have increased are lying.” “That is a lie. Aid to NGOs that need it has increased and they are very satisfied with the effort we are making, which is in the Budget and is authorized by the structure of the department. We are going to continue doing it until May and, if the citizens allow it, deem appropriate, we will do it after May”, he remarked.
Vidina Espino has pointed out in parliamentary commission that while the whole budget of the Presidency of the Government has increased by 15% on average between 2019 and 2023, this item for advisers has grown by 200%, which, according to what he said, reflects that ” the one who distributes gets the best part”, since said game has gone from 740,000 euros to 2.4 million, which means 1.7 million more euros.
In response to the accusations of the spokesperson for the Mixed Group, Román Rodríguez clarified that the Government of the Canary Islands changed the structure of the operation of the Department of the Presidency, which, without increasing expenses in advisors or management centers, was distributed in another way because both the president Torres like him have “different visions, structures and representations.”
Rodríguez pointed out that what the Department of the Presidency has done is increase the resources “to help the people”, since the resources that the management centers managed by the Vice-Presidency area depend on have increased chapter 4 and 7 to help organizations non-governmental organizations such as the Red Cross, Cáritas or the Food Bank, while chapter 1 has been reduced by 3% and chapter 2 by 11%. “So the simplification that this is for advisors does not respond to the truth, simply to the interested use of the information.”
A PRESIDENT “IN THE SHADOW”.
For the spokesperson for the Mixed Group, what Román Rodríguez has done with these explanations is to have publicly acknowledged that he functions as a “shadow president” and that “it is not enough to be vice president and support the president, but rather he needs his own structure to be the shadow president”, hence “he had to make a spectacular 200% increase in the Vice-presidency structure”, to which we must add “the management staff to whom he dedicates more than 2 million euros of the Ministry of Finance”.
Regarding Román Rodríguez’s argument that he uses that money to help people, Espino stressed that the budget forces it to be used for the purpose for which it has been approved and stressed that helping NGOs does not fall within the parameter of technical and political assistance tasks to the vice president. In this sense, he emphasized that in any case, a credit modification would have to have been made or this aid should have been allocated through the Ministry of Social Rights with “total transparency.”
In his second shift, the counselor wanted to make it clear that in the General Budget Law of the Autonomous Community there is a program that is in memory where it is “absolutely clear” that within this denomination there is a set of actions, including aid directly to the associative fabric and to NGOs and it is not necessary to make budgetary modifications. “You have to read the Law. If you read it to him, he doesn’t say the genius that he has said,” said Rodríguez, referring to Espino.
Lastly, he emphasized that the NGOs that have been helped are “very grateful” and stressed that more than 50% of the direct aid that he authorizes and that is in the memory approved by Parliament is allocated to these “big ” NGOs not only for the provision of services, but also to improve their infrastructures, repair soup kitchens, purchase computer media and vehicles, among other purposes.
