Southern Gran Canaria has approximately 8.464 households facing a harsh reality: a tax known as AIEM, which levies an average of 600 euros per year on each family, totaling nearly 5 million euros annually.
Far from being a means of alleviating economic hardship, the AIEM has become a heavy burden, particularly affecting the municipality's most vulnerable families. While these families struggle to cover basic needs such as food, housing, and utilities, their resources are diminished by this tax, which, to a large extent, protects a powerful industrial lobby based in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
This tax acts as a tool to ensure the financing and maintenance of large industries, leaving families with insufficient support and increasing tax pressure. Single-parent families and couples with children, who make up the majority of households in San Bartolomé de Tirajana, are doubly affected, trapped in a cycle of precariousness and exclusion.
Furthermore, the bureaucratic procedures required to access any aid derived from the AIEM further complicate the situation, leaving out those who need it most. The constant rise in indirect taxes and municipal fees linked to this tax increases the costs of basic services such as electricity, water, and gas, creating a situation where poverty is perpetuated and deepened.
Social organizations and public policy experts denounce that the AIEM fails to address the true causes of inequality or improve families' living conditions. Instead, it is used as a mechanism to favor industrial interests at the expense of social welfare.
The popular outcry in San Bartolomé de Tirajana is clear: fair tax reforms, comprehensive social support policies, and a real commitment to guaranteeing basic rights and a dignified future for all its inhabitants are needed.
