Date Published: 07/11/2019
ARCHIVED - Murcia government set to exceed its deficit limit by 14 times in 2019
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
Town Halls in Spain are reported to take between 4 and 582 days to pay expenses incurred!
As the end of 2019 approaches a study produced by the Foundation of Applied Economics (FEDEA) forecasts that the deficit for the year of the regional government of Murcia will reach 14 times the ceiling of 0.1 per cent of GDP which has been imposed by the central government.
Certainly that established limit is very low, but even so the degree to which it will be exceeded if this prediction proves correct suggests that any attempt to comply with it has met with very little success indeed.
On the other hand, Murcia is far from being the only one of Spain’s 17 regions failing to meet the target: FEDEA warn that as many as 10 others will be in the same situation, although only Extremadura and the Comunidad Valenciana will exceed the limit by more (1.8 and 1.7 per cent respectively). At the other end of the scale, the only regions likely to fulfil the objective are the Balearic and Canary Islands and the northern Autonomous Communities of Navarra, the Basque Country, Galicia and La Rioja – in Navarra, the Canaries and the Basque Country revenue is even likely to exceed expenditure!
By July of this year the 17 regional governments presented an overall accumulated deficit for the year of over 3,000 million euros, whereas at the same point in 2018 the figure was minimal, and Fedea attribute the worsening of the situation not to a decrease in income but to excessive increases in spending – the governments have increased their spending budgets by 6.6 this year (6.8 per cent in Murcia) despite firm guidelines establishing a limit of 2.7 per cent.
At the same time, a separate report compiled by the nationwide association of self-employed workers ATA concludes that in August of this year the regional government of Murcia was taking longer than any other to pay its debts and bills, with an average turnaround time of 76 days.
Their figures show that the situation has worsened considerably since April, when the average period stood at 40 days (despite the law stating a limit for all public administration bodies of 30 days), while at the other end of the scale are Galicia and the Canaries (19 days).
The ATA report also produces figures for major Town Halls throughout the country, reporting that while Cartagena pays its bills in just 19 days the figure is significantly higher in Murcia (36 days) and Lorca (57 days).
To put these figures into a wider context, special mention must be made of a couple of extreme cases. On the one hand, the provincial administration in Cuenca is reported to be paying creditors in just 4 days (and the Town Halls of Zamora and San Fernando in only a week), but anyone who has issued an invoice to the Town Hall of Jaén in Andalucía could be waiting for payment for a long time: on average, the council pays up after 582 days!
Image: Fernando López Miras, the president of the regional government, during general election campaigning on Wednesday
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