14/09/2013 00:00
TW
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Madrid.—Speaking yesterday in Madrid, Bauzá said that it was not the intention either of him or his ruling Partido Popular team to “look under the carpet” at the financial management of the previous Socialist coalition government but there is a debt of at least 4'500 million euros to account for. The President said that his auditors had put the regional deficit at 1'104 million euros, but that is without taking into account the “bills that have been left unpaid in the till”. The final reckoning is apparently that the Balearic government's debt amounts to 6'000 million euros.

Hope for the future
Bauzá said that despite the harsh reality of the figures, he was determined to overcome the crisis which is biting so deeply in the Balearics. He claimed that his team would tackle the debt and the economic trough that the region now finds itself in with “rigour and responsibility”.

In order to do this, Bauzá is setting up a special “Office for Budgetary Control” because it is essential, he claimed, to reduce not only the machinery of government but also the number and staffing levels of public companies. To cover the needs of one million Balearic inhabitants, said the President, there are currently more than 170 public companies.

The President pointed out that the first thing he had done after winning May's regional election was to set up an “Economic Stability Plan” which made sure that inhabitants of the Balearic Islands were not left with the burden of financial responsibility of the crisis. For example, said Bauzá, taxes were not immediately put up to raise funds for government. “It is the politicians who have created this problem and they must solve it.”