The plenary session of the Cabildo yesterday approved the island budget for 2022 with the support of the PSOE, Ciudadanos and Sí Podemos Canarias, while CC and PP voted against the accounts, which, finally, amount to 876.2 million after the addition of the amendments approved to CC and PP, which represent almost two million more. The consolidated budget presented by the Government amounted to 874.3 million and registered an increase of 3.8%. Some accounts that were approved in the framework of a very tense plenary debate and marked by the crossing of criticism, accusations and disparate figures between CC and PP and the island government, based on the recent complaints of several mayors about the distribution of investments and grants from the Cabildo.
“It is a balanced budget, from the economic and territorial point of view,” the Minister of Finance, Berta Pérez, defended at the beginning, who criticized “the opposition’s dodgy stance on this issue.” In addition, he explained that it has been prepared taking into account “multi-year planning, distributing resources based on criteria of efficiency, social solidarity, sustainability and territorial balance, as well as the evolution of economic magnitudes.”
For his part, the spokesman for Ciudadanos, Enrique Arriaga, added that the budget “responds to the real and current needs of the people of Tenerife, protects people and reactivates the economy. They are realistic, social, expansive and, above all, equitable, seeking consensus and not the discrepancy that has been tried to create in recent days, seeking to confront the municipalities and manipulate the data ”. He also valued, in a note, that the accounts include an amendment by Citizens to include “a heading for the comprehensive rehabilitation of the General North Highway (TF-152) that runs parallel to TF-5 and connects La Laguna, Tacoronte and El Sauzal ”.
He also defended, as a counselor for Roads, the increase in the area by 2022 and stressed that “in the previous legislature 166 road works were carried out, and now, in two and a half years, more than 240 have already been counted.”
Meanwhile, the spokesperson for Sí Podemos Canarias, María José Belda, criticized that “we are in the middle of a controversy created by some mayors of the Island and that, in addition, it seems that the island government is following suit.” “Enough of causing misrule and political instability and get to work for the common good,” he said.
The spokesperson for Sí Podemos Canarias added that her group presented 39 amendments worth 12 million, such as, for example, 1,958,000 euros for the fight against climate change and the energy transition or 3 million for Housing policies, among others, incorporating several of them.
From the PSOE, its spokesperson, Marián Franquet, defended that “from the current government team we project the Island by focusing on real needs not on political colors” and criticized that CC has “tried to put neighbors against neighbors” with ” incomplete, inaccurate, manipulated or erroneous data ”, within the framework of a“ fictitious controversy ”.
The PP spokesperson, Zaida González, began her speech harshly, saying that “this budget can only be classified as sectarian, parasitic and fictitious.” “They have increased nominative subsidies, which they use to benefit municipalities of the same political color,” he said. González criticized that many items are reduced, the “laziness in employment and business support” and the increase in current spending.
The PP presented an amendment to all the accounts that was rejected, with the votes against the PSOE, Ciudadanos and Sí Podemos Canarias; as well as 83 amendments worth 43.2 million, of which only one went ahead for the project to improve the agricultural and royal road La Cañada-La Guancha, for 300,000 euros.
Along these lines, the CC spokesman, Carlos Alonso, described the budget as “sectarian, unbalanced and without ambition.” Unbalanced because “current spending continues to increase, and the government’s salary continues to increase every year, and investment falls”, and because, furthermore, “it does not treat the different regions fairly. “It is sectarian because it benefits people who live in municipalities where the PSOE governs,” he emphasized. In addition, Alonso criticized that the accounts “do not address the main problem that this land has now”, unemployment.
CC presented another amendment to the totality that was also rejected, as well as another 116 for a value of 72.8 million, of which six were approved for 1,665,000 euros, and that go for the superficial rehabilitation of the TF-366 or the start of phase I of Punta Brava, among others.
“Thinking of Tenerife”
For his part, the president of the Cabildo, Pedro Martín, thanked Sí Podemos Canarias for “the intense work to find meeting points” and criticized the PP for its “so defeatist and negative” approach. “It cannot be that in the end this debate turns into falsifying data saying that we have lowered everything, talking about a budget execution that is false and criticizing current spending, which is so necessary,” he said.
Martín pointed out to CC that “we did not raise our salaries, the increase for this year is the one established by law, and last year they were frozen.” In addition, he defended that “we have been scrupulously equitable” in the budgets, which “we have distributed according to a criterion that had not existed until now, that of understanding Tenerife as 31 municipalities.”
Likewise, he criticized the campaign to “try to confront municipalities with each other and try to wear down this government as it is.” He recalled the important investments that have been made in Santa Cruz, whose mayor leads the criticism, and the agreements that have just been signed, as well as that the City Council has not yet justified the island contribution of 800,000 euros that was made in 2020 for plans of employment.
“We trust that from here, beyond what this campaign in which they are involved may last, we will start with a cool head to think about Tenerife, because the situation is serious, and we will have to continue working for this Island and I trust the support of all of you. Leave this confrontation between municipalities and think that in situations like this it is when the effort of all the politicians and colors that we represent is required ”, emphasized the president of the Cabildo.
