The Congress of Deputies will allocate a budget of just over one million euros for the replacement of Samsung and iPhone mobile phones, an issue that has alarmed some groups in the Chamber, such as United We Can, Citizens and More Country, who have request to annul the call for the contract as it is considered an excessive expense in a difficult context for Spanish citizens.
However, the socialist spokesman in Congress, Patxi López, considers the debate "demagogic" since these terminals that the Chamber wants to buy "are work tools of the deputies."
The contest was approved by the Congress Table, a body in which the PSOE and United We Can have a majority, but the spokesman for the confederal group, Pablo Echenique, admitted this Thursday that his formation was "sneaked" and he has promised to "work" to avoid an expense that he considers "luxurious". "We had not located that decision, we started to investigate and we saw that they had sneaked it into one of the last tables before the summer," Echenique justified. In his opinion, the members of Congress must have a "modern and secure terminal" but "there is no need" for them to be "very expensive mobile phones." "There are other options to fulfill that function," he added.
Citizens have also questioned this decision and have asked that it be annulled. Its deputy spokesman, Edmundo Bal, considers it "offensive" for the citizens that "with which it is falling", the Chamber "gives" their honors some terminals whose price exceeds one thousand euros in the free market.
From Mas País, its leader, Íñigo Errejón, has pointed out that the deputies can work perfectly with the mobile phones that were provided to them at the beginning of the legislature.
The estimated budget for the renewal of mobile phones that parliamentarians have been using is 1,018,789 euros, so the figure could vary.
Thus, the 350 parliamentarians will replace the mobile phones they used until now, such as the iPhone 8 that went on sale in 2017, with new models, whose prices can range between 900 and 1,800 euros, although as it is the start of the tender, will know until it is awarded.
The specifications state that the contract with the chosen distributor will have a duration of two years and that in order to be able to access the tender, the company that offers these services must offer high-end terminals.
