PALMA TO BE SPLIT INTO DISTRICTS

Staff Reporter PALMA City Council is to decentralise the administrative organisation of the capital. It will divide up the existing municipality into various districts such as Playa de Palma, Son Ferriol or Son Rapinya. A principal objective is to enable citizens to make better use of public services and to streamline administrative processes such as paying fines or registering permanent addresses or obtaining certificates and residents cards. The new development was explained yesterday by Town Planning deputy, Rodrigo de Santo. The City Council, he added, is holding ongoing talks with the Balearic government and the Council of Majorca to reach “an agreement on financial collaboration” which could possibly be signed within the next two months. This would give the go-ahead for the improvement of services which are outside the scope of the municipality and which until now, Palma Council has provided for the rest of the island by virtue of it being the regional capital city. The decentralisation process, signalled De Santos, is part of the planning and administration upgrade drafted by new local government legislation. De Santos claimed the administrative reform also resolves the issue of power decentralisation on a nationwide and regional basis. It is hoped that in the next three years the process of decentralisation will be concluded and that citizens will be able to make use of improved district services closer to home.