The Citizen Water Board has reminded the Insular Water Consortium of Lanzarote, made up of the Cabildo and the seven town councils of the island, that "water supply is a right" and its "access should be guaranteed".
The Board has stated that if we add several factors such as continuous cuts in the water supply, "little or no" purification of wastewater, as well as "the little capacity to produce regenerated water" for agriculture. To which he added, "the constant uncontrolled discharges" of wastewater on our coastline, "the low storage capacity, where losses exceed 55%, "without forgetting that when it rains we are flooded due to the poor functioning of rainwater.
In a statement issued this Tuesday, it stated that the management of the integral water cycle on the island "is a real disaster and the worst of all is that in the short term we do not see any solution from the institutions and the political elite".
Thus, he added that "we have been having many announcements and press conferences for more than a year but without concrete solutions." In addition, they have stated that "hence we think they are water sharks. A card sharp is someone who skillfully dominates the shell game, which consists of diverting attention from the central place where the ball is located so that, with magical skill, the citizens of Lanzarote are left lost, focusing on any place other than the one that really matters: the problem of water on the Island that continues to worsen".
The Citizen Board has recalled that in 2013 it was "the PSOE and the Canarian Coalition, supported by other political parties, who privatized the management of public water with the argument that private management guaranteed efficient management in itself and to avoid the embargo of the accounts and assets of the politicians who managed Inalsa and who subjected the public water company to a shameful looting, leaving a debt of close to 50 million euros".
Likewise, he pointed out that on August 30, "four days after the meeting of the Contract Monitoring Commission and that, according to Canal Gestión, these breaches were not included on the agenda. Then, the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort, announced to public opinion the existence of an audit report on the breaches by the company awarded the integral water cycle, and in relation to the essential obligations provided for in the Specifications of Particular Administrative Clauses, and therefore, considered very serious infractions".
The Board added that these events "could lead to the initiation of the file to terminate the contract with Canal Gestión and that the necessary and appropriate decisions would be made." Meanwhile, they have confessed that they have been "surprised" by this "unexpected turn of the Cabildo", in which it mentions the termination of the contract"
This group has expressed its surprise after the Island Government itself, through the Minister of Water, Domingo Cejas, has declared that "they have sold that Canal Gestión had to do everything and no, it had to make some investments that they say are there"
Thus, he has criticized the change of course. "We understood that, according to what the Water Consortium indicates in all its appearances, the most important water problems on the island are: the obsolescence of the networks, the lack of desalination plants and that money was not a problem because there is enough, but no, now they change the ball like good card sharps and tell the citizens, after eleven years of privatization, that the problem is the breaches of the contract of the concessionaire for the entire integral water cycle and recognizing that these breaches have helped us to be in a water emergency".
The Citizen Water Board has demanded "immediate solutions and credible planning in the face of the water problems we have on the island and that between party and party, if possible, they fulfill their responsibilities, commitments and obligations to the citizens of Lanzarote".
In addition, they have added that "as the citizens are the main affected by so much incompetence and apathy; we propose to the Water Consortium that the statutes of the entity be modified and that civil society be included in its decision-making bodies through its organizations, because we believe that water is a very important and serious issue to be only in the hands of incapable politicians".
