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Antonio M. Romero
Friday, 18 October 2024, 11:59
A new financial injection into the coffers of Malaga's municipal councils has been announced this week. The Diputación de Malaga (provincial authority) has approved this Wednesday, during its monthly, ordinary full council meeting, the fourth phase of the Municipal Economic Assistance Plan (PAEM). This amounts to 17 million euros and the approval was achieved with votes in favour from the PP government team, the support of PSOE and Vox and one abstention from the only representative for Con Málaga.
These 17 million euros will go to the 103 municipalities and the two autonomous local entities in the province (Bobadilla Estación and Estación de Gaucín-El Colmenar) and will be distributed proportionally according to population. Thus, they will range from 100,000 euros for those places with less than 500 inhabitants to 400,000 euros for towns and cities with more than 100,000 (Malaga and Marbella).
Of the total amount 11.5 million euros (67.80%) will go to municipalities with less than 20,000 inhabitants and 5.47m euros (32.20%) to those with more than 20,000 inhabitants, according to the data released at the meeting, where it was explained that these unconditional funds can be used by local councils to cover their priorities and to deal with any urgent problems they are facing.
This is the fourth PAEM to be approved this year (the previous ones were in February, April - where priority was given to work on the drinking water supply and distribution - and May, to help the coffers) and the sum total of these has meant that the municipalities of the province have received a total of 67.8 million euros.
Diputación president Francisco Salado stressed that, with this funding approval, the provincial council has once again demonstrated that it is the governing body that devotes most resources to the town halls in its province. "We are aware of the financing problems faced by the local councils, especially the smaller ones, and that is why every year we make an effort to try to improve their financial situation and to make their accounts healthier," he stated.
On behalf of PSOE, Diputación councillor and mayor of Almogía Antonia García has expressed her party's support for this move, although she disagrees with the only criterion for distribution being population because "it does not always reflect the needs of the municipalities" and has advocated taking into account others such as the existence of district needs, the dispersion of the population, the number of unemployed, the level of income and depopulation.
For this reason García has called for the creation of a round table with all the parties in the provincial council attending to see what the most appropriate criteria should be for the distribution of these funds. She has also argued that the large municipalities have more resources in any case.
On this point, Salado, who is also mayor of Rincón de la Victoria, replied that the councils of large municipalities have "more budgets but not more resources to meet the needs they have", especially those on the Costa del Sol whose costs multiply in summer to meet the needs and services of an increased population due to tourism. Meanwhile, PP's deputy spokesperson Manuel Marmolejo argued that, with the distribution of funds done by population, small towns receive more per inhabitant than large ones.
For his part the spokesperson for Vox, Antonio Luna, remarked that these 17 million euros will serve to "improve" the financial situation of the municipalities, while his counterpart from Con Málaga, Juan Márquez, justified his abstention on the grounds that 32% of the funds will go to the 17 towns with more than 20,000 inhabitants.
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