SOCIALISTS SLAM THE BUDGETS FOR 2004

Staff reporter FRANCESC Antich, Parliamentary spokesman for the socialists and the former Balearic leader, described the Islands' official budgets for 2004 as “antisocial” because “they offer no solution to the problems in people's lives”. At the same time, he criticised the fact that the new government hadn't come up with a viable alternative to the controversial tourist tax which was originally set up by his coalition government as a means of funding conservation projects. The tax was repealed this month. “There is no money allocated to the Excellence Plan (an initiative to promote quality of facilities and services on the Islands), about which the government has made so many promises” claimed Antich. “Neither are there funds to support public services or for enabling residents to benefit from higher discounts”, he continued. Antich added that the budgets don't even include funds for helping alleviate the problems of police forces in the Archipelago. The Popular Party, he continued, has not presented any viable alternative to the tourist tax, even though this had been an election commitment of the new government. Antich suggested that this failure to adhere to its manifesto meant that the new government, in spite of its rhetoric, “had little to show”. The spokesman emphasized that “the only thing that the government is doing unequivocably, is bringing the Balearics into public debt”. He slammed the 2004 budgets as excuses for lowering subsidies in housing, health and education, public transport, social security, job creation schemes, and conservation projects. Joint spokesman, Francesc Quetglas, poured scorn on the credibility of the 2004 budgets since they will mean a very substantial loss of income, such as that which had originally been obtained from funds collected through the Tourist tax. “All the government has done is put a great effort into spending on bureaucracy,” he said.