A not so happy New Year for Orihuela

We are all aware of the financial problems that the socialist government left for the PP in Bigastro, in Orihuela it is the reverse.

In Orihuela, the new Council face huge debts left by the conservatives which they say amount to 7,665 million Euros. The daily interest on bank loans alone amounts to 21,000 Euros. The new councillor for finance calculates that each citizen will have to pay 100 Euros per year for the next ten years  just to clear the debt.

The problem, he says, was created by a government team that worked with fictitious budgets, a team that would place orders for work for which no budget had been set.  They would set a budget for say 60, claim to have spent 50 but actually would have spent 80. I imagine a large part of Orihuela’s budget would have come from work licences for building on the coast. When that source of revenue dried up, the city would have felt the pinch more than towns like Bigastro. 

To make matter worse, Councillor Bas reckons that the budget for this next year will be ten million Euros less than last year which means that average cuts of 15% will have to be made across all areas of spending. Since there are areas where cuts cannot be made, that means that even greater pressure will be placed on those where cuts are possible.