Almeria’s local councils in municipalities with less than 20,000 inhabitants can apply from today for aid of up to 30,000 euros for equipment or machinery necessary for the provision of public services, works in municipal buildings, investment studies related to local development plans or actions to encourage economic activity and job creation, especially in endogenous strategic sectors. This aid, which is granted by the Regional Ministry of Tourism, Regeneration, Justice and Local Administration, directed by Juan Marín, has a total budget of 3 million euros, of which almost 400,000 euros will correspond to the province of Almería. For this, the call published yesterday in the BOJA includes that will be valued with up to 20 points objective criteria that indicate that a municipality suffers a demographic decline such as population density, vegetative growth in the last ten years or the aging rate, in addition to the usual scales in this type of calls such as the unemployment rate, the number of inhabitants, the income of the local entity and that the municipality has not been a beneficiary of similar aid. For the territorial delegate of Regeneration, Justice and Local Administration of the Junta in Almeria, José Luis Delgado, “we comply with the smaller municipalities and work alongside them to improve their facilities and services, generating tools to make our villages more attractive, promote their development and fix population”.
“This is a reflection of the commitment of Juan Marín’s Regional Ministry to the defence of municipalism as a way of understanding the administration and full collaboration with local entities”, he stressed, underlining that the objective of giving priority in this aid to those localities with depopulation problems is to “level the opportunities”.