May 11, 2020
The deputy of VOX in the General Meeting of the Principality, Sara Álvarez Rouco, has criticized today during the appearance of the Minister of Finance in the COVID-19 Follow-up Working Group "the lack of specification and absence of a concrete plan" for part of the head of the department to face the economic situation facing the Principality. “If your forecast is, according to what you have stated, to obtain funds, for the moment, through three channels: a national compensation fund of 16,000 million, of which your origin is unknown; transfer of ministries of undetermined amount, and reprogramming of ERDF funds, at the expense of their processing from Brussels for an amount of which their amount is also unknown, it is abundantly clear that from the ministry they lack guidance, planning is conspicuous by their absence and they do not know what is the destiny of our region ”, says Álvarez Rouco.
"At this stage of the crisis," continues the deputy, "the Ministry of Finance continues to work like the rest of the Asturian Government with its policy of responding only to fait accompli. Given the valuation questions about the costs of the pandemic in Asturias, they are unable to extrapolate the costs to date to work with a possible final value figure. Its inability to foresee different scenarios depending on the results that are produced is very surprising, even though we are now in the recovery phase. The possibility of regrowths cannot and should not be an excuse to obtain a hypothesis about the final amount. We do not want to think about the possibility that they have worked on it and do not want to provide the information to public opinion, ”explains Álvarez Rouco.
During the intervention in Question Time, Álvarez Rouco, has requested information to know, so far, what items have been proposed by other councils to transfer to the Treasury and reorganize the 2020 budget credits, as well as to know the financial plan provided by the Government regional. However, adds the deputy, "in her usual speech loaded with good will, but lacking clarity, the Minister of Finance has not provided data in relation to these items in order to build a large fund to deal with the crisis that is ravaging us. If at this date it is known that the pandemic has already cost Asturias more than 103 million and a decrease in income of more than 150 million is expected, but they do not know what figure they must reach to alleviate these costs, how can they quantify the needs of Asturias as a result of this crisis ”.
Also, the deputy has asked about the origin of the funds of 16,000 million euros announced by the Government of Pedro Sánchez. "It seems that the counselor has written a letter to the Three Kings. He says he does not know where it comes from and, to his amazement, he refers us to the central government so that we can transfer the question to him. In other words, the autonomous community receives money and neither knows nor cares where it comes from, "he points out.
Lastly, the deputy asked "about the economic impact that they foresee in the Asturian coffers as a result of the flood of ERTEs requested by Asturian companies, her response was expected: they do not have sufficient data to make that estimate." For all these reasons, it is evident from the appearance, explains the deputy, that "the future of the Asturian accounts is tinged with good words and empty justifications that do not clarify at all what the monetary needs of our region are as a result of the crisis COVID 19 nor what will be the amount that will be collected to resolve them ”, he concludes.
