Canal Gestión Lanzarote has shown its “most absolute astonishment” at the “unacceptable attitude of the Consortium”, which it considers “lacking the minimum rigor required of a public administration”, after learning of the extraordinary call for the Assembly of the Water Consortium of Lanzarote scheduled for next Monday.
The company states it is “perplexed” by the Assembly's will to proceed with the proposal for the termination of the water services contract in Lanzarote and La Graciosa, as well as by the option to temporarily intervene the service. Both issues, it maintains, “lack all legal and operational logic,” since it has not yet received a response regarding the process, still open, to transfer the concession to a qualified third party.
As explained, the public company has followed the guidelines established in the Contracts Law and has sought "a solution adjusted to the law and reasonably satisfactory for both parties", presenting an offer that complied with the demands and requirements set by the Consortium itself.
Canal Gestión Lanzarote states to have worked “in an honest and responsible manner” to explore this friendly path, convinced that it was “the appropriate formula to safeguard the general interest, guarantee the continuity of the service and avoid unnecessary harm to institutions and citizens”. However, it denounces that, after more than six months of waiting, the Consortium “has not made a statement nor sent a response”, despite the deadlines for doing so having expired.
Until now, the company states that it has maintained “a prudent stance of silence in the face of the multiple misrepresentations and falsehoods” uttered by several representatives of the Consortium, but warns that it will not allow that “indolence, administrative negligence, and political strategies continue to harm its legitimate rights”.
Given the seriousness of the possible agreements of the Assembly regarding a hypothetical intervention of the concession, Canal Gestión Lanzarote assures that it will activate “with the utmost forcefulness, all opportune legal avenues to defend its interests, without excluding any jurisdiction or action that proceeds in Law”.
Contractual asymmetry and breaches
After more than twelve years providing the service in a “scenario of legal and technical hostility”, the company maintains that the management of the water cycle in Lanzarote and La Graciosa presents “an absolute contractual asymmetry”. In this regard, it indicates that, while it has maintained the provision of the service despite the obsolescence of the inherited infrastructures, the Consortium “has neglected its most basic duties as a contracting body”.
It also recalls that the hydraulic infrastructures are owned by the Consortium, which committed to execute investments “that have not been carried out”. In response to this, Canal Gestión states to have carried out and justified investments “for a value higher than what was required in the tender document”, in addition to the initial fee and the awarding of contracts for urgent renovation and repair works.
Likewise, it underlines that it has never made unilateral decisions and that all its investments have been communicated to the Consortium, although many of them, "twelve years later, are still waiting to be recognized."
Added to this situation is, according to the complaint, the repeated refusal of the Consortium to apply the tariff update foreseen in the contract, a right “expresamente reconocido y amparado por sentencia judicial firme del Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Canarias”, which has generated a deficit exceeding 40 million euros.
Despite this, Canal Gestión Lanzarote concludes that, while this process is resolved and regardless of the administrative or judicial scenario, “it will continue providing the best possible service, acting with responsibility and institutional loyalty”.