SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Nov. 23 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of the socialist group in the Cabildo of Tenerife, Pedro Martín, has announced the presentation of an amendment to the entire draft of the Corporation’s budget and 50 partial amendments “with the desire to be constructive and try to improve these budgets.”
Pedro Martín stated at a press conference that these accounts “are not what the citizens of Tenerife need”, they are “misleading and disappointing” and “not only do they not solve people’s lives, but they also do not reflect the advertisements that are being carried out, generating expectations for citizens that, evidently, are not going to be fulfilled.
Martín has highlighted that a large part of the measures, especially in terms of mobility and roads, that Rosa Dávila has announced do not have their translation in the budgets and has said that despite being expansive budgets, with a growth of 10% and exceed 1,000 million euros, they withdraw important funds from municipalities and cut back on matters such as Equality or Diversity.
The president of the socialist group wanted to remember that policies “are not made in public statements. They are made by putting money for plans and projects in the annual Budget. Rosa Dávila announces that her policy will be municipalist but she takes away from the mayors of Tenerife money so that they can improve the lives of their citizens.”
Pedro Martín believes that the Cabildo should be the institution that structures and promotes municipalism on the Island. However, in his opinion, “these accounts are anti-municipalist because they almost eliminate the subsidy for employment policies, leaving it at 1 million euros compared to the 8.8 million from the previous year; which is 88% less and very far from the three programs worth the 29 million euros that we provided or the 54 million euros of support lines for companies that allowed the reduction unemployment figures on the island,” he added.
He also denounced the reduction of the Municipal Modernization Program, which is reduced by 40%, or the drop of almost 17% in the budget of the Insular Water Council, “which puts the progress made in sanitation at risk,” warned the former president of the Cabildo.
He indicated that other items that are reduced are those allocated to the ‘Tenerife and the Sea’ Program, which focused on improving the infrastructure of degraded coasts and which drops by 50%, and aid to Agromarkets, which drops by 82%. “putting at risk the viability of some of them, such as Fasnia or La Laguna.”
On the other hand, the socialist counselor denounced the reduction of the Equality budget by 9% and the Diversity budget by 52%, “a reduction that is reflected mainly in the main instrument of the Island Council of Tenerife to promote equality policies on the island of Tenerife: the Strategic Framework of Tenerife Violeta, which reduces its budget by 5%”.
For Pedro Martín, “in an expansive budget project, such as the one presented by the current island government group of the Canary Coalition and the Popular Party, it is inadmissible and inexplicable that the budget be reduced to develop equality policies on the island of Tenerife and even more so in the current historical moment where there are political formations with representation in the differences in public institutions that are denialists of sexist violence and, therefore, of the cruelest expression of inequality.”
MOBILITY.
Martín also pointed out that despite being a serious problem for the Island, the Mobility budget grows by just 1%, so “in a budget that increases by 10% it does not seem to be considered a priority beyond the announcements or experimental measures such as the closure of the TF-5 in Guamasa”.
Likewise, he expressed his concern about the amount of the financial amount for the Padre Anchieta Footbridge “because it shows that with the financing allocated the work is delayed until 2025,” and added that there are no specific financial items for the train either. of the South and only 50,000 euros are allocated for a financial contribution from the Mobility area to Metropolitano for the Northern train.
Something similar occurs with the extension of the tram from La Laguna to the Tenerife North Airport. “It is announced that it will be promoted, but 0 euros are recorded in the 2024 budget project. The same happens with the protocols with Ashotel or the ULL, which are announced and signed but have 0 euros recorded,” warned Pedro Martín.
The president of the socialist group maintained that another of the measures that had been promoted since the previous mandate were the Bus-Vao Lanes, a line that the current CC-PP government group has also defended as the best solutions on the Northern Highway and from the south.
“However, the current insular government group of CC-PP in the budget project for 2024 allocates only 15,000 euros for the tender of the works of each of the projects. In addition, there is a serious risk of losing the 13 million euros from the Next Generation EU Funds that were obtained last year for this purpose,” he stated.
With respect to roads, Pedro Martín recalls that the “doubtful” result of the “experiment” of closing link 14 of the TF-5 near Guamasa and that the president of the Cabildo announced that to maintain the closure, works would be carried out on the TF-235 and TF-152, island roads that run parallel to TF-5; “However, there are no provisions for this in the budget.”
Other examples, Martín pointed out, are that only 15,000 euros are allocated for deterrent parking or that there are no provisions for the supposed agreement with the tow truck sector so that they can remove vehicles in less than 15 minutes.
To all this, the PSOE denounces that “it is incomprehensible that the strategic objectives of the budget include the promotion of road infrastructure and promoting the execution and completion of the same, while at the same time snipping the island road budget of Tenerife with a reduction of 11%”.
