The crisis that almost all of humanity is suffering, and particularly our country and the Canary Islands due to Covid-19, is unparalleled. Despite the shadows, which are not few, in the state management of the health crisis, the truth is that the impressive work being carried out by our Health Workers, Security Forces and Corps and, in general, by all those people who support essential services, is a ray of hope to be able to rise with more strength and determination.
My intention now is not so much to take stock of the health battle we are fighting but to reflect on the day after Covid-19. As public officials we have the obligation and the duty to plan and prepare for a complex scenario at an economic level.
In this sense, I am fully convinced that if the necessary measures are adopted, with a level head and everyone pitching in, just as our elders did, we will emerge stronger.
It is true that we are forced into a scenario where we will have to renounce certain objectives or projects due to a change of priorities. Without a doubt, we will have less tax collection capacity because it is necessary to reduce the tax burden to favor reactivation. But it is also necessary to bet on boosting the economy by creating a "leverage effect".
The objective is that each public investment has a multiplier effect, it is about injecting liquidity into the economic circuit so that the economy is generated.
We cannot fall into the company-worker dualism as antagonistic interests. The future of both is inextricably linked. Just as it is necessary to rescue the self-employed. For this reason, the measures to be adopted must be transversal in nature, reinforcing both social care and facilitating the survival of companies to maintain existing employment.
We are a decentralized State and this has its logic. For this reason, it is necessary to design economic measures in accordance with the sectors involved from the proximity of their knowledge. It makes no sense to force tourist companies by Decree to open ahead of time. The logical thing would be to make said measure more flexible until the opening of the airspace to tourism. Otherwise, and by going against common sense, the viability of a large part of the sector may be put at risk, which with measures adapted to its reality, would better facilitate its recovery.
And as for investments too. We know that we must prioritize projects or works that have an effect on employment and generate economy or "leverage effect". But we need to maintain our decision-making capacity to be able to better attend to those actions that we know better due to their proximity. Hence, I express my strong rejection of withdrawing the very important tool available to local entities that involves the management of their surplus.
I'm done now, simply remembering the key importance, now recognized by the entire ideological spectrum of our country, of the importance that the payment plan to suppliers had at the time in the last crisis. The situation now forces us to innovate again, and that is what we are doing.
Jacobo Medina
Vice President and Councilor for Public Works of the Cabildo de Lanzarote