Hostecar manages that 103 businesses with debts with the Administration request compensation, which will surely reach 519 of the 557 planned
93% of the 557 bars and restaurants entitled to receive municipal aid of about 1,500 euros, to compensate for their losses during confinement due to the pandemic, will have the money in their accounts in a week, reported yesterday the councilor for the Treasury, Esperanza Nieto . A quarter will be able to access the subsidies thanks to the efforts of the regional hospitality employer, Hostecar, and their agreement with the City Council to prevent their debts with the administration from being an obstacle. In total, 920,000 euros will be distributed, in addition to the 300,000 that hotels have already received and the 150,000 destined for taxi drivers, as part of the municipal plan directed by the mayor, Noelía Arroyo, and the deputy mayor, Ana Belén Castejón.
«The Treasury area already has all the data of the beneficiaries, but we want to wait a couple of days, because there are 38 businesses that have not yet agreed to comply with the necessary legal conditions. A dozen of them have assured us that they are going to do it and we want all the compensation to come at the same time, “explained Nieto.
The 557 establishments indicated by Nieto as beneficiaries had to close completely, between mid-March and early June of last year, to comply with the confinement due to the state of alarm decreed at the national level. Later, its opening has been conditioned by restrictions such as the prohibition of serving inside and at the bar, as well as the limitation of the capacity to preserve social distance.
One year of negotiations
The City Council agreed to waive the terrace fees from March 15, 2020 and during 2021 to compensate for the reduction of tables and chairs on public roads. A year ago, he added the promise of direct aid that has encountered more difficulties than initially planned and that is now when it will be released. The importance of doing it now is that next week the availability of funds for all payments that have not been ordered before is blocked, which was going to force bars and restaurants to wait until after Christmas.
“Many need that money to pay their suppliers, facing a Christmas campaign in which we have hopes of recovery,” said the president of Hostecar, Juan José López Escolar. If finally the increase in infections calls that into question, at least there will be an injection of funds to weather the situation.
The fundamental obstacle encountered by the 110 establishments that initially did not process the request for aid was the obligation to pay the terrace fee for the first quarter of 2020, a period in which it was not abolished. Hostecar first complained that the exemption was not total, but later he got down to work and agreed with the City Council on a solution to the problem, acting as an intermediary. Nieto and López Escolar are waiting for the 38 missing establishments to apply.
Refusal to charge for terraces
The secretary general of the PSOE, Manuel Torres, criticized yesterday “the collection of the terrace tax from last year, which the government team said to cancel, and it does so when infections increase that may increase restrictions on the sector. In his opinion, “not only do they give little money, but what they do give out will probably be recovered with the fees.”
They ask for state funds in favor of teleworking and to prevent computer attacks
The Local Government Board yesterday gave the green light to the request for 803,944 euros in grants to digitize the operation of the City Council that will improve both the working conditions of officials and the quality of their service to citizens. Among them are security systems to prevent computer attacks and data leaks.
The main initiative is aimed at improving the operation of the Data Processing Center. In addition to shielding the protection of information and favoring its recovery in the event of computer disasters, it is also intended to create virtualizations of the workplace in order to facilitate teleworking in case of need. For this part, 497,000 euros are requested.
The other three projects refer to improving the cybersecurity of networks and information systems, with the implementation of a security operations center for the City of Cartagena, for an amount of 197,650 euros. For the citizen, it is planned to create an Intelligent Virtual Assistant, as a digital public service platform, with a budget of 59,640 euros; and a final project, worth 49,635, which will establish a system for integrating municipal files for citizen consultation and processing.
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