Benjamín Perdomo, number three on the list for the Cabildo of Lanzarote, has responded to the statements of the candidate of Coalición Canaria, Oswaldo Betancort, who has accused the president of the Cabildo, María Dolores Corujo, of "criminalizing the owners of vacation homes."
Benjamín Perdomo acknowledges that: "These statements can only be understood from the deepest and most absolute ignorance or, on the contrary, from a populism lacking ethics."
He adds that "in her speech, the president limited herself to presenting a diagnosis, the tourist saturation in Lanzarote, and explained that "the growth of recent years has occurred in vacation tourism places", which now represent "almost a third of all tourist beds", he makes clear. "This is an extraordinarily important fact that cannot be questioned, as they are official figures," the candidate explained.
Perdomo recalled that the president of the Cabildo in her appearance, explained that "this accelerated growth of vacation homes distorts our main economic activity, tourism, and removes homes initially intended for families from the residential market, generating tension in prices."
"Telling the truth is not criminalizing anyone, it is explaining a phenomenon that is causing enormous problems for the population of Lanzarote" and what Corujo has done is "announce that we will have to take control measures", Perdomo insisted.
"What is indeed outrageous and portrays the low moral stature and lack of ethics of Oswaldo Betancort is to incur in this type of alarmist manifestations, when what the people of Lanzarote expect from their politicians is that they clearly explain what they are going to do to respond to the real problems of the island," the candidate explained.
Perdomo says that for the Socialist Party the scale of values is very clear: "Respecting the right of each person to decide on their assets, the truth is that we cannot turn our backs on reality and allow tourist places to continue to increase while the people of Lanzarote cannot find a place to live decently at a reasonable price."
In addition, he has asked that "those who are truly concerned about guaranteeing the health of our economic engine, tourism, ask Oswaldo Betancort if he proposes to apply in Lanzarote the same policies that he has applied in Teguise."
"The mayor who has allowed the deterioration of Costa Teguise to intolerable limits, the mayor who has kept the skeletons of Costa Teguise standing as an authentic monument to the corruption of his party, the mayor who has not even been able to water the gardens of Costa Teguise and prevent the disappearance of an important part of the trees cannot now say that he is with tourism," he argues.
Perdomo has reproached the CC candidate for "his lack of concern for housing, since he has not put a single square meter of land for the promotion of public housing in his municipality, despite the requirements that have been made to him from the Government of the Canary Islands", and chose "not to take advantage of the Cabildo's financing for rent assistance to vulnerable people."
"Oswaldo Betancort has ignored the needs of his neighbors and now is dedicated to generating noise and alarm"
"Oswaldo Betancort has systematically ignored the housing needs of his neighbors and now is dedicated to generating noise and alarm only because others are doing their homework."