The deputy for Fuerteventura of the Socialist Parliamentary Group Manuel Hernández has asked the Government of the Canary Islands to "abandon the excuses" and "extend the 20-cent fuel bonus" that is already applied in La Gomera, La Palma and El Hierro to the islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, since they also have the highest shopping basket in the Archipelago and suffer higher levels of poverty.
Hernández denounces that "both Coalición Canaria (CC) and the Partido Popular (PP) have rejected for the second time in the Plenary of the regional Chamber the immediate application of the fuel bonus to both islands", presenting a Non-Law Proposal (PNL) that "does not bet on this measure, but is limited to asking the Canarian Government for a market study on hydrocarbons about the possibility of applying the subsidy".
The socialist deputy intervened in the last Plenary of the regional Chamber to denounce the "plagiarism" of the nationalist proposal to which the Socialist Group recently presented, which has demonstrated its "incongruity" between the "statement of reasons and the proposed agreement, far from urgently implementing this bonus on the islands". "To rectify is wise, but instead of doing so, what they propose is to delay the adoption of a measure on a fact that is public and notorious: that the price of fuel is skyrocketing in the eastern islands, whose inhabitants also bear a greater burden in their pockets derived from the increase in prices."
For Hernández, this rectification by the Canarian Government "had to have been carried out during the process for the approval of the Budgets of the autonomous community for 2024". "They did not know how to do it either in this budgetary process or in the Plenary of last December, where we debated the proposal of the Socialist Group, and they do not rectify now either."
In this sense, he asked the regional Executive "to clarify", since while "they ask for a report on hydrocarbon prices, the Minister of Finance has requested the creation of a price observatory", which "we do not know if it is to observe the posters of the service stations".
In addition, he recalled that "the price of diesel was sold this week cheaper in La Palma than in Fuerteventura", so he reiterated the "need for the immediate bonus to the eastern islands in a proportion to that which will be applied to the green islands". "We have already requested it in the Plenary with our PNL and we believe it is a measure of justice."
Hernández insisted on "defending the socialist proposal and rejecting the CC initiative", which, in his opinion, only intends to "entangle", generate "comparative grievances" and create a "third insularity" in Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. "It is to marginalize them with the complicit silence of the deputies of CC and PP in these islands."
