I am writing to you, as I said in the plenary session, with the desire to lend a hand, and as a man who has prepared more than a dozen budgets. I do so motivated by the respect I have for the position I represent and those I represent, for the respect your figure as President of the Cabildo deserves, but without undermining the hopes and dreams of those who want to see their island prosper.
Therefore, after studying and analyzing the first budget prepared by your government for the fiscal year 2024, the first assessment I make, from the deepest respect, is that they are an absolute disappointment.
First, because the improvement in external financing received by this Cabildo, via current capital transfers, via the Complementary Financing Fund or the Canary Islands Financing Block and other organizations, produces an increase of 11.5% in the income chapter, which allows this Cabildo to breathe deeply with ease.
Despite this ease, and I link with the second reflection. This budget is not ambitious, it does not seem to be the budget of the first term of a new president, of a new government, nothing of what was promised is contemplated in it.
Areas as sensitive as Social Welfare do not grow in the same way. In this general budget, the item for scholarships in education does not grow either, despite what it states in its report that, let's say politely, is not adjusted to reality. Rather, the opposite happens, it goes from 1.4 million to 1 million euros.
In your inauguration speech, Mr. President, you said that you were committed to having an ambitious Housing Plan in place. There is nothing in this budget. To have projected the new Sports City: zero euros in sports infrastructure. To significantly increase the items in Social Policies, where they forget, by the way, the Gender Violence Prevention Service, among other sub-areas such as dependency that also suffers economic decline in the management of the day centers of Las Cabreras and La Graciosa.
Weeks later and in a press conference you announced 90 million to solve the water problem in Lanzarote and look, 0 euros in public works for this issue in the budget that you and your government have prepared.
In these accounts there is not a single euro of investment in the Integral Water Cycle, the item of 3 million euros that was in the year 23 no longer appears in 24, Mr. President. They reduce by 1.1 million the items in primary social care. They take the item of waste treatment to the limit, reducing more than 1.4 million euros. Nor do the commitments acquired to care for and preserve our landscape and financing for the burial of the electrical lines that support the towers of Las Casitas, Femés and Maciot appear. He also remains silent before the Government of the Canary Islands to demand the co-financing of the 18 million euros to execute this project.
Mr. President, you already know me, I am not trying to make any demagoguery, but it is true and it is reflected in these budgets, the commitment of your government to increase advertising and propaganda expenses by almost 100,000 euros compared to the previous government, or to increase current expenses disproportionately by more than 60% compared to the previous budget, to raise to an exorbitant limit the item of Cultural Promotion, which I already anticipate will be reflected in events in Arrecife, events in Costa Teguise and events in the municipality of Tinajo, all of them participated in the government by your party and the PP.
In another order of things, you have also raised in an exorbitant way the item of Economic Promotion, so that people understand us, Saborea Lanzarote, which also grows by 1.5 million euros, that is, it experiences an increase of more than 45%.
I also remember that in your inauguration speech you said that you were going to demand from the Government of the Canary Islands, in your role as parliamentarian, multi-million investments for the Integral Water Cycle in Lanzarote, for health issues and for other educational or social endowments. The question that many of us ask ourselves with all due respect is where have you been in the approval of the last regional budget? You know that we have had to resort to parliamentary forces from another province to get, for example, the Family Respite Center of Playa Blanca included within the III Plan of Socio-Sanitary Infrastructures. It is something unheard of, I know, but it reflects the scarce influence of the majority of Lanzarote parliamentarians.
Therefore, Mr. President, and I say it with absolute humility but with absolute sincerity, and without wanting to make demagoguery, change course. Mr. President, count on us, I am willing to continue lending you a hand, but you make it very difficult for us, increasing current expenses, increasing advertising expenses, also increasing, because it is a reality, the expense in salaries of the governing bodies in 877,000 euros, 34% more. There, it is difficult for us to reach an agreement, it is difficult for us to have a point of understanding.
These accounts are not the ones that correspond to an island that has to be ambitious, to an island that wants to look to the future with illusion and hope. And we deeply regret that this budget does not reflect the solutions to the main problems of Lanzarote, and therefore that it helps to build a much more competitive island. On the other hand, it is a budget of many photos and many parties, but very far from the real situation of the street, of little solution of the real problems of the people of Lanzarote.
My town, Yaiza, is a solidary town and puts in your hands public land to build responsibly in Lanzarote a center of attention to vulnerable families and vulnerable people with insular character.
It saddens me very much, sincerely, that you have made of this budget some accounts to continue feeding the policy of conformity, the policy of everything is fine and there is little to change. Despite the commitments you acquired in your inauguration.
Mr. President, reconsider Mr. President, go back, you will have our hand extended. Please, start by fulfilling your word. This Mr. President is not a children's game in which we go dressed in suits and ties. This Mr. President is the livelihood of the people. This Mr. President is the services of our neighbors. This Mr. President are the social, educational and health issues of those who accompany us in this wonderful island of Lanzarote. You have to take it seriously, Mr. President.
I tell you with humility that these budgets are not acceptable, that with these budgets we do not solve the main problems of the island of Lanzarote and you know it, but you prefer photos, parties and fireworks. We will see what the citizens say. Run Mr. President, four years pass quickly. Let's move from the signature in the notary and the word to the facts.
Thank you very much.
