PHOTOS: Sergio Betancort.
"They have committed to finish on March 31 and I hope so, the company is promising us every day that it will be so, but I don't have them all with me." With this phrase, the Councilor for Commerce of the Cabildo, Manuel Cabrera, admitted this Wednesday that the works on the Avenida Marítima de Arrecife could be extended beyond the new deadline granted to the company. The initial deadline ended almost a month ago, on January 31. The company requested an extension and the Cabildo decided to extend it for another two months, although it has not yet put it in writing. Despite this, the councilor now admits that not even that time would be enough. The merchants in the area are even more pessimistic and some are convinced that they will not finish until the summer.
In the midst of the controversy unleashed by these works, La Voz de Lanzarote toured this artery of the city this Thursday. Hustle and bustle of workers and machinery and relatively advanced works is what the few pedestrians who travel it find at the beginning of the street. As you move forward, however, the potholes multiply and the number of operators decreases. The merchants in the area, who are daily witnesses of these works for 8 months, oscillate between resignation and anger. Resignation because, they say, they only have to "endure" until they finish. Anger because they believe that the work is a "disaster" and that the number of operators only increases when they make their criticisms public. "They went to the bartola until we started complaining," one of them told La Voz.
"I think they won't have finished in San Ginés," one of the merchants predicted with concern. "I highly doubt that they will finish in March. Also, Easter is coming, there will be a party... This will be extended," lamented another. Another of the merchants, who claims to be on the verge of closing due to the works, also pointed to the months of July or August. And that is that from the institutions they were told that the works would last 6 months, "and we have already been 8." "If I had known that the works were going to last a year, I would have left the premises, so as not to lose my savings," he now laments, when he can no longer even afford to pay the rent.
And it is that when walking along the Avenue it can be seen that the works do not have signs of finishing in the scarce month that remains until the deadline expires. In this capital street, the movement has been greatly reduced due to the works. This Thursday morning, only a few pedestrians and several misplaced tourists were passing through there, trying to find their way in an unknown city among the labyrinth of fences and walkways. Some ditches are already closed and especially in the area of the Casino Club Náutico, the works are more advanced. A handful of retirees peered through those fences to observe how the operators worked there. In that part, the new pipes have already been connected to some of the buildings, the holes that were there are covered and a curb draws the line that will separate the new sidewalks from the road through which the vehicles will circulate. However, the situation is very different just a few meters away.
"There is still a lot left"
In the section from the music kiosk to Calle Real there is still a lot to do. La Voz has been able to verify that in that area a good part of the pipes still have to be installed, and therefore the work in the subsoil has not yet been completed. Several merchants have also explained that the sidewalks at the door of their shops, which are still intact for now, still have to be completely broken to replace them with the new pavement.
"There is still a lot left, many earth movements, they still have work to do," Manuel Cabrera acknowledged to La Voz. "Let's see" if within the term of that extension the company is "able to finish the work", said the councilor, who does not even refer to all of the work, but to "the largest". He alludes to the fact that in that time they finish the "movements of shovels and land". "If the seats, the trees remain... minor things that would not bother the citizens so much, that it opens to traffic," he adds. It should be remembered that the councilor had already assured at the beginning of December that "the largest part of the work" was "finished", although that was almost two months ago.
Cabrera pointed out this Wednesday to La Voz that "the subsoil can be considered finished, pending finishing touches" and explained that "now the installations in each building are missing; each building has to be connected to those large pipes, it is a laborious job." However, judging by the state of the Avenue this Thursday, there is more than just those connections pending. In the last section of the street, the huge pipes that still have to be placed under the ground could be seen piled on the pavement.
In this sense, the Cabildo had already pointed out in October that Canal Gestión was carrying out works in the area in parallel. The company, for its part, denied this Wednesday to La Voz that it was carrying out work there. As he explained, the project that is being developed on the Avenue includes replacing all those underground pipes and, therefore, it is the contractor of the work, Ingemont, who is in charge of that work. From Canal Gestión they do recognize, however, that they "collaborate" with this company. Specifically, they affirm that they are the ones who provide those pipes and, even, that it is their staff who install them. In fact, La Voz de Lanzarote has been able to see one of the foremen of this company supervising the works this Thursday, although this employee did not want to speak to this medium.
"They should have at least twice the staff"
The merchants, for their part, believe that, in order to meet the deadlines and avoid further delays, the company should have more staff. "They should have at least twice the staff," says the tenant of one of the businesses in front of the Ramírez Cerdà park. This man affirms that the pace of work has intensified "in the last three or four days" in that area, coinciding with the harshest criticisms of the merchants, the announcement of the closure of businesses and the outbreak of the controversy. According to him, it was not until the beginning of this month of February, once the deadline had expired, that there began to be movement of workers in front of his premises.
"There were one or two workers, four maybe the day we complained," the owner of a business a few meters further away told La Voz. This businesswoman agrees with the other merchant and assures that until approximately February 12 or 13 "only some workers were seen in the distance", but no one in that section. In fact, this Thursday there were approximately twenty employees working along the entire avenue. However, the vast majority carried out work in the area of the Casino and in the section of the Government delegation. Beyond the Uned building, there were no trucks or machinery working; and you could barely see an operator entering and leaving one of the booths that they have placed in front of the kiosk.
This merchant especially emphasizes that "there are more workers since we complained." The merchants have been expressing their discomfort with the works for some time, but their criticisms have been particularly harsh in recent weeks, as the deadline passed and the works continued without finishing. In this sense, another businessman, who runs a business in the Casino area, explained that this Monday he saw a team with 3 new workers join.
"They are seeing that they are not going to get economic benefit from this work"
This merchant does not complain about the lack of personnel, but he does think that there are problems of "organization". "They start here and go to another place. They start one thing and don't finish, that's what I see," he explains. "Things can be done in another way. Finish one thing, so that people even see that things are being done," adds this merchant, who believes that "everything is very slow, slowed down." "This will not be finished in March, not even crazy."
Although the Cabildo had been justifying the delays in the works until recently, the councilor has also admitted now that "more means could have been used by the company." "They have said that now they were going to put all the meat on the grill, but it is also true that I consider that everything they put is little because they have not met the deadline stipulated in the contract," he said in this regard.
When asked about the reasons for these delays, Manuel Cabrera ventures that the company could have won the contest with an offer that was too low. "Maybe they are seeing that they are not going to get an economic benefit from this work, but they were the ones who competed and made that offer, and they are forced to comply with it." Meanwhile, the merchants only hope that they will conclude as soon as possible. "I think it will be good, but they have to finish now, because we are all that we can't take it anymore," stressed one of them.
