The plenary session of the Santa Cruz City Council yesterday approved a budget modification of about seven million euros to advance the payment of the purchase of 19 buses that Titsa will carry out to deliver to Santa Cruz, with the aim of avoiding the payment of a greater amount of interest given the foreseeable evolution of the financial market, with the rise in interest rates. In order to carry out this budget modification, it has been necessary to cancel items for the same value in the budget. Precisely the latter was the main criticism of the opposition to this modification.
As denounced by the different opposition parties, advancing a payment for an operation that had already been closed in an agreement has meant canceling items such as 300,000 euros to finish La Granja park, the remodeling of the Roque Negro Cultural Center, or the 500,000 euros provided for the roofing of at least two schools, along with other works by neighborhood associations or garden remodeling such as those in the La Salud neighborhood.
Most of these items, given the height of the year at which it is, were not going to give time to be executed, so, according to the municipal opposition, advancing the payment of the buses, “will only serve to improve their data of Budget Execution”.
