The Arrecife City Council will approve its annual budgets for 2024 this Friday, December 29. Budgets that, for the first time, are approved in the fiscal year prior to the budget year.
The mayor of Arrecife, Yonathan de León, head of the Budget Management Unit, and the deputy mayor and councilor of Finance, Echedey Eugenio, presented this Wednesday the budget document of the capital's Consistory for the year 2024, whose approval will be taken to the ordinary plenary session in December, and that, for the first time, the capital of Lanzarote will have the budgets approved before the end of the year.
The mayor, who opened the presentation, remarked that these budgets, the first of the Municipal group that he chairs in this new term, amounts to 68,429,528.62 euros, and 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 percent.
Yonathan de León specified that these budgets are the largest in 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 first mayor detailed that “in 2019, the year before the pandemic, the municipal budget of Arrecife, according to the settlement, stood at 52,809,473 euros, and total expenses, at the end of that year, at 49,104,600 euros. 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 year 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 detailed that, from the Budget Management Unit, attached to this Mayor's Office of Arrecife, these budgets are formulated, with the support of Intervention, with an initial base where the additional sources of financing 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 61%, in Transport and Mobility the increase is 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 relaunching the capital as the epicenter of shopping and sporting events.
These are realistic budgets that firmly bet on the well-being of citizens, in which the increase in the Culture Area stands out by more than 20%.
Likewise, the mayor has highlighted that there is also a significant 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 has 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 their streets and making it possible for them to have better sports facilities”.
Another of the important items included in the budget is the one 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, has stressed that it is essential for an Administration such as the Arrecife City Council to have its budget approved before the year begins “so that we can continue the course set during this term”. A mandate in which the main thing is people.
Thus, the document 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 stressed that “the budgets reflect the project that we have conceived as a government for this city, with 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 “which for the first time in Arrecife has its own specific item within the general budget” stand out.
The mayor finished his speech by thanking 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 he is working with him for the residents of Arrecife”.
