I have been a deputy in the Canary Islands Parliament for five years and for five years I have been hearing CC, day in and day out, denounce, criticize and complain that the problems we were suffering in the Canary Islands; health problems, dependency, education, poverty (we are, together with Andalusia and Extremadura, the poorest Autonomous Communities in Spain), were the fault of the Spanish Government mistreating us and not sending economic resources to attend to the most important public services of the Canaries.
The Spanish Government agreed almost a year ago to cede to the Canary Islands the extinct IGTE, which amounts to 160 million euros for 2016. Recently, the same government of the Popular Party announced that the Canary Islands will also benefit from another 400 million euros as a result of decoupling the REF from regional financing.
In the Popular Party we have always defended that the additional resources that arrive from Madrid, thanks to the tireless work of the Canarian PP, should be destined to essential services, that is, health, education and employment.
We believed that Coalición Canaria also had the same political concern, we believed that CC was also interested in solving the most important problems of the Canary Islands and Lanzarote, but once again we are aware that we do not have the same priorities.
Do you agree that CC in the distribution of these Fdecan resources allocates 7 million euros to execute a parking lot in a municipality of Gran Canaria and "leaves without a euro" another municipality that requested resources for social housing?.
I have been hearing CC leaders in Lanzarote say that as a consequence of the distribution of that money, which from the PP, PSOE, Podemos and NC we propose to allocate to health, education and aid to those most in need, Lanzarote is going to lose 16 million euros.
And I ask myself: why are we going to lose the 16 million euros? Is it that CC Lanzarote is not going to demand from its government and its party that governs in the Canary Islands that those 16 million euros reach Lanzarote and that they are allocated to health, education and those most in need?
Let us remember that it is the Canarian Government (CC- PSOE) who decide where the resources go and if we lose all those millions of euros it is because CC Lanzarote, with its government and its party, have been incapable of fighting for the interests of our underfunded and mistreated island by its government, precisely, in health, education and social services.
It goes without saying that I am still waiting for CC Lanzarote to raise its voice for the mistreatment and discrimination that has been committed against our island in the distribution of the Canarian budget, which amounts to more than 7,300 million euros.
To this day, CC in Lanzarote has not given us any explanation about the distribution of resources from the powers transferred to the Cabildos and which is so detrimental to the island institution.
We recall that Lanzarote, despite having 150,000 inhabitants and more than 2 million tourists a year, receives 13 million euros less than the island of La Palma with just 86,000 inhabitants and less than half the tourists, or that La Gomera receives just 50,000 euros less than Lanzarote. To see the grievance, it is enough to analyze the population and tourist influx in La Gomera and, therefore, the needs that one and the other island may have.
I have not heard CC Lanzarote speak or fight to increase health spending on the island of Lanzarote compared to other non-capital islands. Once again, other islands with half the population and 75% less tourism are better funded than us. Lanzarote is second to last after Fuerteventura in health investment and spending.
Of course!... CC Lanzarote does not want to talk about all these things because neither the accounts work out nor is it within its priorities.
Astrid Pérez, regional parliamentarian and president of the Popular Party of Lanzarote
