Monday 26 October 2009

This sign costs up to €1,200

After a little research and a letter published in El País on Saturday that we found on TioJimeno, it turns out that each of these signs costs somewhere around the €1,200. Some simple maths adds together at least eleven of these signs in the municipality of Jimena alone (there may be more we haven't seen), and they come to €13,200, which the central government obliges the Council to pay if it wants to take part in the PlanE employment scheme for 'renovation' of small towns and villages throughout the country (see related item here). If there are eleven of them in this municipality alone, how many are there throughout the country?>
To grab a figure out of the blue, let's say 8,000 signs. That adds up to €96 million. But who is getting that money? Signmakers, of course. But: A. Is it a single signmaker designated by the central government? Or B: Are there lots of them up and down Spain? If the answer is A, that's a lot of money for a single business. If it's B, that's a little better - only, how did either A or B they get the business?
The letter in El País, signed by one Pablo Alejandre Calviño, of Badajoz, says that in one small village in Castille, a sign announced an estimate of €5,500 for the work being covered by PlanE and if the sign announcing it cost €1200, that was 20% of the total cost of the work. Calviño asks: What are the circumstances that merit such a privilege [for the signmaker/s]? Why is such a notorious and scandalous thing being paid such little attention by the media? It also says that it is 'very cynical' on the part of the Government and an insult to the intelligence of the Spanish.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello.
I'm the author of the letter in El País you're mentioning. Maybe I can make some precisions.
I don't know how many PlanE projects there are in Spain. I haven't found that information on the net. But there's at least one per village-town-city. As there are around 8100 municipalities in Spain, and some of them have several projects, that makes no less than 9000-10000 projects.
As to the signmakers, the answer is: there are many of those business in Spain, and each municipality can freely contract the making of the sign, BUT: the design and dimensions of the sign are regulated by law. Government wants to make sure that everybody can read how good they are.
Pablo Alejandre Calviño

PROSPERO said...

Many thanks for your comments and correction, not to mention your mathematics!

Anonymous said...

Thanks to you for "mirroring" this information. This kind of things are so disgraceful, that they make me ashamed of being spaniard.