Alicante businessmen complain in Madrid of suffering "double underfinancing"

Since the afternoon of October 6, when the territorialized investments in the General State Budgets became known, Alicante has cried out to heaven.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
19 October 2022 Wednesday 22:49
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Alicante businessmen complain in Madrid of suffering "double underfinancing"

Since the afternoon of October 6, when the territorialized investments in the General State Budgets became known, Alicante has cried out to heaven. The province of Alicante will receive 160 million euros of investment, 12.3% less than the previous year and occupies the last place in the national ranking in investments per inhabitant, with 85.48 euros.

Faced with this budget, yesterday its businessmen appeared in Madrid to claim, from the headquarters of the CEOE, "what corresponds to us", a claim made by the president of the Alicante Chamber of Commerce, Carlos Baño. He was harsh in his arguments by accusing the central government of having drawn up "the worst budget in history for the province of Alicante" and accusing the Generalitat Valenciana of being "co-responsible, because it cannot allow budgets like these to reach us".

The Consell has already shown its disagreement with the treatment of the Alicante regions in public accounts and even Vice President Aitana Mas urged civil society, deputies, to "lobby to put pressure on the central government."

And about exerting social pressure, the businessmen displaced to the capital also spoke yesterday, from where they assured that they want to mobilize the entire Alicante society, also the political parties, to express their discomfort. In fact, yesterday they already scheduled a series of actions, among which is the holding of a concentration in front of the Government sub-delegation in Alicante in which compliance with the Transparency Law will be demanded with respect to the execution of budget items and the way the data is presented.

They did it with the presentation of the motto "Alicante deserves more" before which the Business Confederation of the Valencian Community (CEV) has joined, with its president Salvador Navarro and its provincial manager in Alicante Joaquín Pérez at the head; the Alicante Chamber of Commerce and the Institute of Economic Studies of the Province of Alicante (INECA), whose presidents, Carlos Baño and Nacho Amirola, respectively, were also in Madrid.

They explained yesterday at the press conference that investments in the province of Alicante have been reducing since the PGE of 2018, when they reached a value of 579.3 million euros; however, and they recalled that Alicante has an accumulated deficit of 3,539 million of the PGE since 2018 by not receiving the investments according to the population; figure to which can be added 300 million by 2023.

The president of INECA pointed out how Alicante suffers "a double underfinancing: The first, with a negligible investment. The second, with the execution, since 42% of what has been budgeted is actually invested. It is sadly regrettable that the budgets, on top of being short, do not execute even in the middle”.

“We are the worst treated province in this country in terms of state public investment. This has a high risk of division and territorial inequality", warned the president of CEV Alicante, Joaquín Pérez, who asked for "an urgent response from the deputies and senators that we have elected in Alicante" and that the state government "respect the criterion of equality among citizens.

For his part, the president of the CEV, Salvador Navarro, referred to regional financing as "aggravating" the situation in the province of Alicante and called for the reform of the financing model that "is still stuck".

Navarro recalled that almost five years ago a proposal for change was submitted by the group of experts created for this purpose and, despite the different mobilizations and changes in government, the proposal on the calculation of regional financing announced for the past is still pending September by the Minister of Finance. “In 2023, each Valencian and Valencian will receive 360 ​​euros less than the state average and 1,156 euros less than the best financed autonomy. These differences are the root cause of our largest budget deficits,” Navarro said.