The so-called Plan to Promote the Tourism Sector (PIST) presented by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, on June 18, 2020 to alleviate the disastrous effects of the pandemic was a fiasco that remained in propaganda, according to a harsh report. of the Court of Accounts approved in its last plenary session.
The supervisory body says it has focused on the part of aid for improving the competitiveness of the sector to recover as soon as possible from the coup and the result is devastating since the main lever was not operational until a year and a half later.
The plan was endowed with 859 million euros and this is the verdict: “In general, most of the measures were planned before joining the PIST and, in global terms, they have not been implemented in a timely manner (…) It has not been effective in developing the planned measures in quantity, quality and time, nor has it been configured as a planning instrument, lacking its own elements that would define it as such, such as the lack of determination of objectives and measurement indicators or mechanisms of follow-up”.
Especially useless has been the main instrument of the plan, the so-called State Financial Fund for Tourism Competitiveness (FOCIT), “endowed with 515 million euros that would be used to grant loans to tourist entities and companies.” It did not give a single loan for a year and a half despite being a theoretical emergency, especially because it lacks a regulatory regulation. “During 2020 and at least until the end of 2021, no loans were granted. The report establishes as the main cause the difficulties in having a regulatory regulation at the time when these measures were to be implemented,” says a statement from the body that presides Enriqueta Chicano, appointed at the proposal of the PSOE.
What happened to the regulation? “From Royal Decree Law 12/2019, of October 11, which adopts urgent measures to alleviate the effects of the opening of insolvency proceedings of the Thomas Cook business group, which makes up the new Fund, a new regulation within a period of three months”, stated the Court. However, instead of being at the end of 2019, it was written two years later. “It is not until the end of 2021, when the new regulation is developed, so the delay in the development of the regulation has made it impossible to grant new loans in the aforementioned period,” he says.
The responsible minister at the time was Reyes Maroto and his team, “it has not been effective in developing the measures provided for in quantity, quality and time aimed at improving tourism competitiveness and, consequently, it has not been able to alleviate the adverse effects of the pandemic in this sector as intended”. The Court of Accounts places particular emphasis on the Secretary of State for Tourism held at the time by Fernando Valdés, who left office last December.
“Another of the planned measures was the line of loans for the financing of digitization, innovation, and internationalization projects in the tourism sector, endowed with up to 216 million euros in loans, with a subsidized interest rate and long repayment terms. This line did not have the expected effects, mainly due to the difficulty of management,” the report added.
There is an exception in the general fiasco of the plan, when the money went from one administration to another: “The only measure that was fully accepted was the aid directed to local entities, with a budget of 53 million euros, from which 76 municipalities benefited”.
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