These figures come from the State Comptroller's Office. While tourists enjoy the endless summer on the dunes, the public accounts of Gran Canaria's main tourist destination have suffered a financial collapse. The City Council has posted a deficit of €41.964.696 since 2023. This figure represents a dramatic turn from the prosperity of previous years, as the municipality went from a surplus of almost €17 million in 2021 to this budgetary abyss in just twenty-four months.
The main culprit behind this accounting disaster is not a lack of revenue, but rather an explosion in spending that seems to have no end in sight. Total expenditures skyrocketed by almost 80% in the last year of the PSOE, NC (now Prica), and Ciudadanos coalition government, rising from 81 million to over 147 million euros. The most surreal figure is found in capital transfers, which jumped from a modest 896.130 euros in 2022 to the astronomical sum of 52.627.870 euros in 2023. This 5.772% increase suggests a distribution of funds on a scale unprecedented in the city council's recent history.
Despite this glaring deficit, San Bartolomé de Tirajana faces a financial paradox worthy of study. On the one hand, the municipality's revenue is significantly higher than the national average (€1.925 per capita compared to the national average of €1.340). On the other, it boasts an outstanding debt of just €716, a symbolic amount that contrasts sharply with the fact that the town hall is currently failing to meet either the budget stability target or the spending rule.
Fiscal transparency has exposed a system where net savings have plummeted by 33% while millions of euros are being spent under the southern sun. With a net loss of €768 per inhabitant in a single year, the Canary Islands' tourist paradise faces the challenge of explaining how it can be the municipality with the best bank debt and, at the same time, the one that drains the public coffers the fastest.
