Who is right – it is for you to decide

The lady mayor of Bigastro, Charo Bañuls accompanied by the spokesperson for the government team,  Aurelio Murcia and the Councillor for Finance, Antonio Gonzalez went to the press yesterday to make the situation regarding state funding to the town clear.

The ex socialist mayor had accused the new council of loosing out on 1.5 million Euros of state funding by sending the annual accounts to Madrid well after the deadline. Charo Bañuls first of all pointed out that it was the socialist party that had failed to meet the March deadline and then went on to set out what she says are the true figures.

She says that Bigastro had received 355,000 Euros of funding between January and June against the 622,000 Euros it would have received if the accounts had been filed on time and went on to point out that Bigastro should receive 88,000 Euros a month which amounts to 1.06 million per year and not the 1.5 million quoted by the socialists. As I understand it, the situation is complicated by the fact that the town owes money to social security which is withheld from the funding. 

What we are seeing is a war of words in the press between the previous and the present government teams. Inevitably each will have a different take on the situation which makes it very difficult for us to know who is speaking the truth. One thing is clear though, the town has already missed out on government funding for this year, the amount it should have received is where the debate lies. As to why the town has missed out, well the blame for that lies mainly with the socialists who failed to make a return before the March deadline and then with the current government team who took from May until the end of August to file a late return.

Is it any wonder that we find it hard to  trust politicians when they provide us with such conflicting information.