The Socialist Party accuses the PP of Torrevieja of not having used the subsidies received for a value of 1,030,000 euro within the framework of the Vega Baja Renhace Plan out of pure political sectarianism.
Bárbara Soler, the head of the local PSOE, assures that for two years the council has had at its disposal the first aid package worth 580,000 euro for works that prevent flooding but it has not used it because it comes from the Botànic government.
These recriminations, which have been made by the local, and regional PSOE, have received a response from the PP press release whose content has been denied again by the local spokesperson in a video posted on their social networks.
The decree that regulates the granting of the first phase of subsidies was published in August 2021 and set a period of 22 months to carry out the works. Torrevieja was granted more than 580,000 euro to subsidise a project to build sustainable urban drainage systems and thus stop the flooding that the municipality suffers every time it rains. The subsidy would be completed up to a total of 1,030,000 euro in a second phase, the requirement of which was to have completed the purpose of the first phase.
According to Soler, “the Torrevieja City Council, despite having received an extension of eight more months, has let all the deadlines pass without progressing on the projects with the risk of losing the subsidies for the sole reason that they were a bet by Ximo Puig to regenerate our region and prepare it for future episodes of storms.”
However, the current PP and VOX government in the Generalitat has decided to extend the deadline for another 24 months, changing the name to “aid for Vega Baja”, and it seems that this time the Torrevieja Council is going to make use of subsidies, “which demonstrates its sectarianism and how little it cares about the well-being of its citizens.” “Even the choice of the name is unfortunate,” says Soler, because “the name “Vega Baja Renhace” suggests that the region itself rises and resurfaces with effort and unity, but “aid to Vega Baja” implies that the merit is not of the region and that we must be clear that we must give thanks and to whom. Although we know who, and it’s not them.”
The response of the PP of Torrevieja took a while until it finally issued a press release “whose content is false from beginning to end,” says Soler.
In this note, the PP assure that the Botánic Government only budgeted for Torrevieja 600,000 euro for the drafting of projects and not a single euro for their execution and that the Torrevieja City Council is making an investment effort in terms of drainage of rainwater, more than 8.5 million euro, compared to the zero euro invested by the previous socialist government of Ximo Puig.
“I understand that it is a desperate exercise to defend the indefensible, but you only have to go to the Decrees approving the Vega Baja Renhace Plan, which are published, to realise that Torrevieja was assigned 1,030,000 euro in total and that they could be used for projects, works, the purchase of plots or whatever was considered necessary,” says Soler. “The PP of Torrevieja cannot expect the Generalitat to come and pay them the total amount of all the storm drainage works that they have not carried out during all their years of government, detracting and allowing them to lose a million euro because it is insufficient to everything that Torrevieja needs to undertake and that is the responsibility of the local government,” she assures.
Finally, the socialist spokesperson has stated that all the works listed in the Torrevieja PP press release correspond to projects that AGAMED, a mixed company, has carried out, so these amounts “have not come from the Torrevieja City Council.”
