The Arrecife City Council has approved its annual budgets for 2024 this Friday, December 29. Budgets that, for the first time, are processed in the fiscal year prior to the budget year.
The mayor of Arrecife, Yonathan de León, head of the Budget Management Unit, which has prepared the budgets, highlighted this Friday in a plenary session that during 2024 "more than 13 million euros" will be "injected" into the modernization of the neighborhoods. The mayor detailed that, to the "six million" contemplated in the section of investments in the accounts, will be added another "seven million" additional from the Municipal Cooperation plans.
The mayor made a detailed presentation of the accounts for 2024 in the plenary session, and remarked in his speech that, with these budgets, the first of the municipal group he leads, the "modernization of Arrecife" will be promoted, having the neighborhoods as the "central axis" of the new actions in urban works.
The budget, approved with the favorable votes of the Government group (PP and CC), and the vote against the PSOE and Mixed group, amounts to the amount of "68,429,528.62 euros". It experiences an increase of 9.3% in income compared to 2023. It allocates "6,077,400 euros" to the investment chapter, "exceeding the previous year by 9%". Real investments will be located in "more than 13 million" with the municipal cooperation plans.
Yonathan de León has specified in the plenary session that these budgets are those of "greater amount and investment capacity" with own resources. In the past year, the city council carried out a "credit operation to allocate it to investments and the payment of the plot next to the Charco de San Ginés".
The mayor detailed that “In 2019, the year of pre-pandemic, the municipal budget of Arrecife, according to the settlement, was located in €52,809,473, and total expenses, at the close of that year, in €49,104,600. In the years 2022 and 2023 the suspension of the fiscal rules derived from the state and European Union decisions was maintained and the budgetary work of this exercise that begins, for 2024, focuses its points without knowing the decisions that the Government of the Nation and the European Union will propose for the new budget year”.
De León Machín has detailed that, from the Budget Management Unit, attached to this Arrecife City Hall, these budgets are formulated, with the support of Intervention, with an initial base where the additional financing channels to which the Local Corporations can opt are unknown, and essentially if the rigidities of the 'Fiscal Rules' will return. With the increase in public spending, the necessary economic development of the city continues to be favored and promoted, through support for local sectors.
In the global chapter of culture the increase is located in 61%, in Transport and Mobility the increase is located in 20.86%. For the External Promotion of Lanzarote, via SPEL, an increase of 900% is provided. In Tourism and Commerce the increase reaches 71% focused on the relaunch of the capital as the epicenter of shopping and sporting events.
These are realistic budgets that firmly bet on the well-being of the citizens, in which the increase of the Culture Area stands out in more than 20%. Also, the mayor has highlighted that there is also an important increase in transport and mobility “to give a good change and improve our public transport with the acquisition of new buses and the implementation of electric bicycles.
The mayor emphasized that “we are facing a realistic budget, which will look after the neighborhoods of the capital, allocating more than three million euros to the improvement of its streets and making it possible for them to have better sports facilities”.
Another of the important items that are included in the budget is that destined to the "adaptation and legalization of the municipal Recova (100,000 euros) and the municipal fish market".
For his part, the capital's head of Finance, Echedey Eugenio, had previously indicated in the presentation meeting of the municipal accounts to the media that it is fundamental for an Administration such as the Arrecife City Council, that it can have its "budget approved before the year begins" so that "we can follow the course marked during this mandate”. "A mandate, in which the main thing is the people".
Thus, the document that has had free way this Friday, in the last ordinary plenary session of the year, includes two very important items: one of "5,688,048.58 euros for Social Services and Social Promotion and 10,799,180.71 euros for Housing and Urbanism".
Eugenio has stressed that “the budgets reflect the project that we have conceived as a government for this city, making special emphasis on the leisure and entertainment industry as a way to boost the economy and employment of our city”.
The deputy mayor has also emphasized the planning of investments in the short and medium term “in which we have been working since we formed the government group”. For Eugenio, in short, these are "clear accounts" in which the "commitment to culture, healthy leisure, Health and a primary sector" that for "first time in Arrecife has its own specific item within the general budget" stands out.
The councilor thanked both the Budget management area with the mayor at the head, as well as the Intervention Area, “who worked and approved this budget in record time so that on Friday we can take it to plenary and in January is working to with him for the residents of Arrecife”.