Transparencia Urbanística (TU), an association that acts as a popular accusation in the Unión case, has issued a statement in response to the response of the government group in the Arrecife City Council in which it "makes a call for calm to the citizens" in the face of the Court's decision to exclude the Consistory as a private prosecutor in the Urbaser case.
"It is offensive to intelligence that the same political parties that direct and have directed the political action of the main institutions of the island in recent years call for calm to the citizens in matters of corruption and guarantee of the defense of the general interest when they have only shown complicity with the corrupt and negligence in cleaning their own house," they say from TU. "The parallel reality that our rulers draw daily, in a futile effort to dilute the assumption of political responsibilities, does not prevent citizens from being fully aware of the cynicism and the level of manipulation of language that, on occasions like this, becomes gross due to recklessness. Calling for calm to the citizens when the foundations of the rule of law tremble due to rampant corruption is not the message expected from those directly responsible for this quagmire."
Transparencia Urbanística states that "the Socialist Party, the Canarian Coalition and the Independent Party of Lanzarote have lost their legitimacy to demand trust from the citizens when it comes to corruption and the management of public money. If they have demonstrated anything in recent years, it is a great capacity to adapt to the pestilent environment of corruption. They are responsible, together with the Popular Party, for corrupting our institutions, trafficking in influences, adorning themselves with bribes, embezzling our resources and prevaricating with our vote, so their call for calm is perverse."
"Citizens cannot be calm when our political representatives practice genuflection before the power of money day after day. We are astonished at the spectacle of corruption in the face of decisions taken against the general interest that seriously harm the living conditions of citizens and endanger the survival of democracy. Therefore, they should know that their words are vain, they are hollow, they have exhausted their credibility. The prosecutor's office has credibility when it compares the actions of the Arrecife City Council in the investigation of the Montecarlo case with those of the PP in the Gurtel case," they say from TU.
"We ask the government group to leave the words for when they recover the lost credit and there is no other way to do this than the effective purification of political responsibilities, the strengthening of the judicial defense of the City Council with all the means at its disposal, the separation of its activities from the officials and personnel who are subject to a criminal investigation and the restitution of the powers and positions to the officials who represent the dignity of the public function. Strict compliance with the Law on Transparency, access to public information and good governance, as well as the assumption of the decalogue of good practices in public procurement must cease to be subjects not passed by those who commit their word to recover the embezzled public money. The government group must think, strive until reaching the conclusion that their commitment must be directed to prevent corruption. They have not meditated enough when they affirm that TU must repair the damages that they themselves have caused," they add from the association.
They also add that "Transparencia Urbanística has done nothing more than take up the baton of the citizen groups and movements that have been uncovering corrupt practices for years. In Lanzarote, it is not the citizens who have failed or are failing. Those who have not lived up to the task are the political parties with government responsibility, who have openly opted to become niches of incapable people who conceive politics as a means to enrich themselves and give shelter to the clan. The same parties that celebrate with joy that the defense of the general interest is guaranteed by an association of citizens, are in favor of restricting the role of the popular accusation to limit their capacities and powers. The same parties that drop the responsibility of recovering the stolen public money to the Public Prosecutor's Office are the ones that decide budgetarily the indigence with which judges and prosecutors work. The same ones who reward political loyalty above capacity and objectivity, now present themselves as guarantors of the general interest."
Finally, they state that "the parties that economically feed the media that intimidate us daily for exercising popular action, resort to TU to try to divert attention from their own inability. We observe with attention the effort wasted by the media owned by the accused to intimidate and discredit our action as a popular accusation. A Dantesque spectacle of playing ball with the heads of the honorable. Transparencia Urbanística will continue to freely develop all kinds of activities and actions to prevent and fight against the various forms of corruption in the field of territorial, urban and natural resource planning and management, and the awarding of contracts for the supply of products or goods, or the provision of essential public services, as ordered by our Statutes. We are concerned about the pressure that popular accusations receive, but those who exercise it must not forget that futile efforts lead to melancholy."
