United We Can and Citizens rebel against “very expensive” and “sumptuous” spending in a difficult economic context like the current one
The renewal of the mobile devices of the deputies has put United We Can and Citizens on a war footing. After it was made public that the Chamber is going to allocate just over a million euros to the acquisition of state-of-the-art phones and tablets to replace those that were delivered to them in 2018 when they collected their minutes, the two formations have been openly shown in against that spending given the current context of crisis. “It is a sinvergozonería”, assured yesterday the orange spokesman, Edmundo Bal, who will resign from his terminal along with the rest of his companions. “Do deputies have to have a modern and secure terminal? Yes, but it doesn’t have to be a very expensive mobile, “said, for his part, the spokesman for the confederal group, Pablo Echenique.
The departure was approved unanimously by all the members of the Table in a meeting held last June, where PSOE and Podemos have a majority. Echenique assured that when we saw the news in the press “we have started to investigate” because, according to his version, “we had not located the approval of that decision” and “we saw that it had been leaked to us.” After emphasizing that he uses his personal cell phone and not the one that Congress provided him with in 2018, the purple leader advanced that his group will fight to reverse the tender announcement and prevent “luxury spending” from being carried out.
More drastic was the deputy secretary general of Ciudadanos, who branded as “embarrassing” that it can be faced in the current economic circumstances -in the midst of an inflationary spiral and with the price of electricity and gas skyrocketing- such an expense with public money. The Liberals have registered a letter addressed to the Table requesting that the contest be revoked because “no one would understand that a deputy, by the mere fact of being one, has the right to be given a high-end mobile” .
From Mas País, its leader, Íñigo Errejón, pointed out that parliamentarians can work perfectly with the mobile phones that were provided to them at the beginning of the legislature. “Personally I don’t need a new generation terminal or more features because with the one we have -he assured- we can do our job perfectly”.
The PSOE spokesman, Patxi López, considered the debate “demagogic” because mobile phones “are work tools for deputies”, as did the PP spokeswoman, Cuca Gamarra, who transferred, in any case, the decision to the presidency congressional. “The phones belong to the Chamber and, therefore, it is up to the government of the Chamber to make the appropriate decisions,” she settled.
The Official State Gazette (BOE) published this Wednesday, September 7, a tender worth 1,018,789 euros to renew the terminals, as well as the device management system and associated services. Thus, the 350 parliamentarians, in addition to advisers and staff of the Chamber, will replace the mobile phones they used until now, such as the iPhone 8 that went on sale in 2017, for new models, whose prices can range between 900 and 1,800 euros, although since it is the start of the tender, it will not be known until it is awarded.
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