The Lanzarote parliamentarian of the Popular Group and president of the PP of Lanzarote, Astrid Pérez, has presented 18 amendments to the Draft Law on Budgets of the Autonomous Community for 2023, aimed primarily at improving deficient infrastructure and services, such as education, health, and social care; water; sanitation, transportation and the environment, fundamentally.
The Lanzarote deputy points out that a clarifying example of how these budgets have been managed are the distribution criteria that have been followed in terms of transfers in competences. "While Lanzarote, with 156,000 inhabitants, receives 15,900,000 euros, La Gomera, with just 21,700 inhabitants, will receive 15,700,000. "That is, barely 200,000 euros more are allocated to a Cabildo that manages two islands, having, as we also have, practically seven times more population and this is what we find intolerable," denounces Astrid Pérez.
According to Pérez, "Lanzarote is once again a punished island in these budgets," as has been repeated in the last eleven years in which the PSOE and CC have alternated in the Government of the Canary Islands. The island has been at the bottom of regional financing for decades and the mistreatment is visible to everyone in different areas, such as healthcare where we barely receive 880 euros compared to the 1,200 euros that the capital islands receive."
Precisely in healthcare matters, the amendments represent a total amount of 1,150,000 euros that are distributed between the Hemodynamics Unit (300,000€), the equipment for the radiotherapy bunker (300,000€), the care equipment for Early Care (300,000€) and 250,000 euros for what should be the future Argana Alta Health Center for which Arrecife has already ceded the land.
Regarding investments in education, the Populars demand the inclusion of 200,000 euros for the Special Education Center; 400,000 euros for the Zonzamas Integrated Training Center; 200,000 euros for improvements in the CEIP Los Geranios and another item of similar amount for the construction of the ÍES of Maneje, a center that the educational community has been demanding for a decade without the Canarian Executive assuming it as a priority.
Among the amendments that have to do with Social Rights, an item of one hundred thousand euros has been included to help Arrecife with the financing of the Social Dining Room launched a few months ago and another of one hundred and fifty thousand euros to reactivate the Senior Center of the capital.
In relation to the eighth island, the proposed improvements for La Graciosa amount to 700,000 euros, corresponding 500,000 euros to subsidize boat transport to Lanzarote to equate residents on the island with the rest of the Canarians who will have free bus transport, 100,000 euros for the installation of a small desalination plant that guarantees the supply of Caleta de Sebo and does not depend on the current pipeline, and another 100,000 for a plan to beautify the public spaces of the population center.
The Populars have also included in their amendments to the budget 820 thousand euros for sanitation projects and wastewater pumping stations. Specifically, 250,000 euros for the completion and finishing of EBAR Cabildo de Lanzarote, another 250,000 euros for EBAR Cabildo, impulse from Avenida Medular to the intermediate station and 320,000 for the storm tank on Calle Portugal.
The presented amendments are completed with separate items for the creation of a collection point for inert material in Arrecife (300,000 euros), and 210,000 euros for the modernization of the Administration of Justice in Lanzarote.
