The VOX councilor in the Cabildo de Lanzarote, Óscar Pérez Pérez, has erupted this Thursday after the approval of a new millionaire payment to the concessionaire company of interurban transport. According to the councilor of the formation, the current management is an "insult to the resident" who "sees how their taxes finance the transport of millions of tourists while the island's towns suffer systematic abandonment".
"It is a shame that today millions of euros are approved to pay for a service that does not serve the Lanzarotean, but rather the beach tourist," the VOX spokesperson has declared. "We are buying latest generation, hybrid and luxury buses so that tourists go for free from Costa Teguise to Puerto del Carmen, while our neighbors from Haría, San Bartolomé , Tinajo and other localities we send them in ten-year-old junk that are falling apart."
From VOX they directly point to the Sunday service in the Villa de Teguise as the maximum exponent of this poor management. "We pay per kilometer traveled to fill buses with tourists who come to the market. The Cabildo pays for the party, the tourist travels for free with the vouchers we finance, and the resident is left behind."
Óscar Pérez highlights the "disastrous comparative management": "In Tenerife the State puts up the money, but here the Cabildo boasts of a gratuity that comes directly from the resident's pocket because they don't know how to demand the funding that corresponds to us. We are assuming 80% of a cost that the Government of Spain should cover, just so that this governing group can take a photo with 8 million passengers who, for the most part, were not born here nor pay their taxes here."
VOX demands an immediate audit of the season ticket system and that investment in essential lines be prioritized that connect towns with the hospital and workplaces, before continuing "giving away kilometers" to hotel areas.
"We are not going to allow that the money of the Lanzarotean continues to be the slush fund of the tourists' vacations," concludes Óscar Pérez,
For the party, this payment "is the definitive proof of the lack of control": "We are paying for 8.2 million passengers, but the Government group is unable to tell us how many of those trips are by residents going to the doctor or to work, and how many are by tourists who take advantage of a voucher system that does not distinguish between those who pay taxes in Lanzarote and those who come for a week's vacation. It is a looting of public coffers to finance the 'all-inclusive' of transport".