The Ministry of Finance once again postpones and continues without publishing the data on the execution of State investments in the autonomous communities, after Catalonia was especially harmed in recent years. Yesterday it was planned - according to the calendar on the Treasury website - to publish the data corresponding to the first half of the year and at the close of this edition it had not appeared and ministry sources doubted that it would be done. But the thing is that it has not yet realized the execution of the investments for the second half of 2022 that should have seen the light of day on May 30, four months ago.
Sources from the ministry believed that the reason for the delay is because “these are reports that come from many sources and that different organizations must validate them until they are finally published.” In previous years the figures were published on the day that was set on the calendar.
In the case of last May, the publication of the information coincided with the pre-campaign of the general elections and yesterday with the investiture debate and the negotiations with the Catalan parties to form a government. From the Generalitat, the non-publication of execution data is considered “institutional disloyalty” and “a very serious problem of transparency”, in the words of the Minister of Economy, Natàlia Mas.
“By not publishing the investment execution data for 2022, it seems that they consider that this information belongs to the Government, but that is not the case. This information belongs to citizens and the obligation of the Spanish Government is to publish it when appropriate,” declared Mas. The councilor has been denouncing the lack of information on real investment activity for months. Mas recalled yesterday that "from 2015 to 2021, the State has invested in Catalonia 62% of what it had budgeted, while it has allocated 122% to Madrid."
In the latest budgets, Catalonia had a greater endowment of resources than Madrid, which generated harsh criticism from governments such as that of Isabel Díaz Ayuso. The reality was exactly the opposite since the Madrid community obtained a greater volume of real investment than the Catalan one. The councilor added that “three quarters of the money that was not spent should have gone to Rodalies.”
The problem of lack of transparency also occurs in other areas, the councilor recalled: “the State does not want to provide the information to make fiscal balances, something that the PP even did when it was in La Moncloa.” Even so, the Department of Economy estimated with the little available data how much it could amount to and placed the 2021 deficit at 21,982 million euros, the equivalent of 9.6% of GDP. Although in absolute value it is the highest figure in the series, it is not the highest in percentage of GDP.
“And the State is also not wanting to tell us how much money corresponds to us from the financing model for next year, basic information to be able to prepare the 2024 budgets,” concludes Mas. This information is the advance that is delivered to the communities on account of the expected collection in the territory.
