"Give credit to the works and not to the words." This phrase from Don Quixote de la Mancha is, surely, the one that best fits the role that citizens have when it comes to overseeing politicians and their mandates. And this is because many politicians talk more than they do for the people.
Not even a month has passed and bombs are already starting to rain down on the Tías town hall. Well, more than bombs, you could say they are firecrackers from the town store. Firecrackers that once again show us the ugliest side a politician can give. And all because of the decisions carried out by the newly formed council. Decisions that, in all likelihood, are focused on solving those damages forged during the two terms of the previous government. And what does the previous government, currently in opposition, do to prevent reality from splashing on it? What I say, let off firecrackers to distract attention from the real problems that the new Mayor has encountered, such as the power outage due to non-payment (see here).
But let's go step by step.
The first mistake the opposition makes is showing impatience by attacking the council in such a short space of time. But, although impatience is a sign of weakness, it is not so bad if the criticism is correct. However, if you fail, it can backfire. And this is what happened to the former PP councilor for social services, who accuses the council of "dismantling" the department she herself directed. A department that was at the bottom of the list of national municipalities in terms of social spending (see here). You can't have so much nerve and assert that "priority is being given to parties over the needs of people" when Tías has occupied 36th place on the linked list.
Moreover, the audacity is greater when one goes to the City Council Budgets approved by the PP. In them you can see the following: spending on Culture (which includes Parties) increased by 330,971 euros in the 2018 budget, in relation to those of 2017 (the year that places Tías in the aforementioned 36th position), while for spending on Social Services there was only a total increase of 61,190 euros. But it is even sadder to see that the "Parties" section suffered an increase of 55,000 euros, almost the same as the entire increase in spending on Social Services. Does Aroa Pérez really dare to accuse of dismantling in favor of the Parties with these data that point to her as partly responsible for her own accusations? But that's not all. It could be worse.
For example (and this would be a second mistake), it could happen that the same former councilor, the former mayor and I don't know how many other members of the outgoing government started sharing on Facebook a photo of the statement of cash available after their departure in the City Council. So that, later, it would come to light that these accounts are really many stories, which does not leave them in a very good place. And even less when they do it accompanied by a certain contempt towards the incoming government.
Why are they a story? The audit establishes that there is a total of 24,843,124.26 euros in the coffers. The problem is that part of that money corresponds to transfers for investments from the Government of the Canary Islands, the Cabildo and the Central Government (about 7 million euros according to the current mayor in Café de Periodistas). Transfers that have a deadline (December 31, 2019) for which they must have been executed and completed, in order to justify the transfers and not have to return the amounts plus interest. For example, the city council had 500,000 euros since 2016 to renovate the Plaza de las Naciones and 2,000,000 euros for the renovation of the avenue. The first amount must be justified by July 21. What a waste of money and time, right?
These are some of the details that show who is and who is not worth managing effectively, and who should and should not make accusations without first reviewing the data.
But, in addition, we must also mention the 9,092,000 euros of outstanding debt (bank debt) that the City Council had as of December 31, 2018 and that are included in said audit (see here). A debt that remains at levels of 2016.
Therefore, and doing a basic calculation exercise, if we subtract from those 24,843,124.26 euros the approximate 7,000,000 euros that may have to be returned (let's see who puts a project out to tender, awards it and finishes it in 6 months) and the 9,092,000 euros of the outstanding debt, what we really have left is: 8,751,124.26 euros. What do we do when the personnel expenses amount to almost 10 million euros? Hence, the audit report is more of a story than accounts.
There are no healthy accounts if we understand by healthy the balance between income and expenses. If more than 50% of the funds belong to transfers from other organizations and to the outstanding debt, how can it be defended that the accounts are healthy if the rest is not enough to pay the salaries? And we are not even talking about current expenses. That is, parties, aid, etc. Nor can it be defended that the council is dismantling anything. Rather, it is clear that it is already dismantled.
In short, apparently there are people who believe that during their term the spending on Parties was a Social Service, and that stories are worth selling accounts that cannot provide a solution to a real situation.
Alejandro Pérez O'pray, Political and Administration Sciences from the UNED.
