The Lanzarote Citizen Water Council has expressed its outright rejection of any water tariff increase and has called for the immediate recovery of the Integral Water Service for direct and public management, considering that the current model is unsustainable and harms citizens.
The collective responds this way to the recent statements by the president of the Cabildo, Oswaldo Betancort, in which he linked the transfer of the integral water cycle to an increase in tariffs, as well as to the government group's stance that it is "not time" to rescue and remunicipalize the service. For the Mesa, these assertions ignore the reality of the system and the existing reports.
As they recall, the Pricing Commission already ruled that it was **inadvisable to pass on costs to the population** due to the extremely high level of losses in the distribution network, which in Lanzarote exceeds 56%. "You cannot reward mismanagement that allows more than half of the water produced to be lost with a tariff increase," they point out.
Furthermore, they maintain that a reduction in unregistered water—whether due to technical losses or fraud—would even allow for a decrease in the bill's price. In this regard, they emphasize that any tariff review could only be considered, in any case, from a public management model that guarantees access to water as a right, something that, they denounce, is not happening today due to the daily cuts suffered by numerous residents of the island
The Citizen Water Council considers that the current moment is key to rescuing the service in the face of "serious breaches of contract" by Canal Gestión, including the lack of committed investments and the failure to reduce water losses to the 30% set in the 2013 contract. In this context, they demand the completion of the resolution file, the collection of the report from the Canary Islands Consultative Council, and progress in negotiations to avoid lengthy legal disputes.
The collective also warns that the termination of the contract will entail an "unavoidable" compensation, the cost of which, they assure, will be lower the sooner action is taken. Likewise, they defend the creation of citizen participation bodies to oversee and make transparent the future direct management of water.
For all these reasons, the Citizen Water Council trusts that the Pricing Commission will once again reject any attempt at a tariff increase, as no improvements in service have occurred since its privatization. "Water management, a vital resource, is much worse today than in 2013," they conclude, reiterating their slogan: "Water as a right, direct and public management, now."
