It's time to tear our clothes. The Government of the Canary Islands is putting the budget for next year to a vote, and Lanzarote is once again crying out against a new marginalization, which in this case borders on scandal. Everyone is shouting. The ...
It's time to tear our clothes. The Government of the Canary Islands is putting the budget for next year to a vote, and Lanzarote is once again crying out against a new marginalization, which in this case borders on scandal. Everyone is shouting. Those in the opposition, the party colleagues of those who govern in the Canary Islands, and those who until recently governed, and even had the Ministry of Economy and Finance in their hands. But in the meantime, from the outside, it is difficult to really know why they are shouting.
In raw terms, the figures are overwhelming. Lanzarote has been allocated only 36.4 million euros in investments, which means less than half of last year. However, despite the forcefulness of the numbers, it is difficult to find reasonably coherent and solid speeches from the island's representatives.
Now, the new fashionable cliché is to talk about the budgetary "photo". The president of the island's highest institution, Pedro San Ginés, did so, stating that "the current photo of the budgets is regrettable." His government group in the Cabildo also sent a press release to denounce the comparative grievance with other islands. However, in that statement, there was not a single piece of data on what they are claiming. Not a single work that they have bothered to request and that has not been included in the accounts of the Canary Islands. Not a specific claim, beyond the generality that they want more money.
Just a year ago, when he was already occupying the presidency of the Cabildo, a headline could be read along the same lines. "San Ginés questions the budget of the Canarian Government and hopes that the amendments will improve the treatment of Lanzarote." At that time, it was possible to scrape together a few more millions at the last minute, which are part of the traditional pulse so that everyone can put on their medals and everyone is happy, but the inevitable question is: What the hell have they done since then in the Cabildo?
The lack of money has been the most listened to song in recent times to justify everything that is not done on the island. However, when the money is really at stake, which can give an important change to the year that is about to begin, is the island's first institution once again caught by surprise? What the hell did Pedro San Ginés talk about last week with Paulino Rivero, who spent two days in Lanzarote? Did he really only have time to convey how bad some of his party colleagues are and how unfair the world is to him, because he dares to criticize his management?
Judging by the press release that the Cabildo sent a few hours after the end of the photographic tour that San Ginés made with the president of the Government of the Canary Islands, it would seem so. Because after sharing 'flashes' for hours with Paulino Rivero, and just after saying goodbye, San Ginés could not think of anything better than to communicate to the media that the government group has requested an "urgent" meeting with Paulino Rivero. And then we wonder why La Palma always receives infinitely more money than Lanzarote, despite having half the population?
Probably, if our rulers dedicated to this island only a tenth of the time they occupy in internal machinations, in strategies to preserve the chair and in political wars, by now we would be swimming in abundance.
However, when listening to and reading their statements, it gives the feeling that they barely know what a budget is. And some believe that it is enough to say "I want more money", like a child asking for pocket money, instead of presenting projects, numbers and specific needs. And that's because you have to work.
The promise now is that the accounts will be modified and that Lanzarote will receive more than what appears in the initial "photo". In short, the same old thing. But the reality, the harsh reality, is that it doesn't matter at all. Because they take us for a ride when they make the budgets, because they know that we are going to let them do it, but above all when they execute them. Or has any public representative bothered to explain how much money from the budget for this 2010 that is about to end, has actually been invested in the island?
Just one example. For the Arrecife ring road, about 20 million euros were budgeted for 2010, and the work has not yet been awarded. What has happened to that money that we were supposed to receive? And what has happened to the almost 4 million euros for the Lanzarote V desalination plant, which has been budgeted for years with millionaire figures that are not executed? Has anyone seen it? Or has anyone seen the public housing, in which more than four million euros should have been invested in 2010, and more than three million in 2009?
Definitely, the budgets are not a photo, but an authentic drawing, or a mirage. But it seems that the public representatives of this island are satisfied with that. With the snapshot that appears in the press and shows how well they get along with the president, and with fictitious accounts in which, systematically, millionaire items are put for works that everyone knows are not going to be executed, either due to lack of consensus in Lanzarote or, simply, because no one is going to bother to demand that they be carried out.
In a few weeks, more than one will once again boast that they have obtained some money for such or such project. To say that they have improved the "photo". But that is useless if, afterwards, as has happened very recently, they even lose items that they have assigned because the councilor of the Cabildo, in this case Fabián Martín, did not carry out the pertinent procedures for the Government to contribute the money that was going to be allocated to the cruise passenger promenade. But in total, it was only a million euros that, of course, will not come out of the pocket of any of the public officials, but from other real needs of the population of this island. And apparently those, the further away from the photo, the better.