"I hope the third time's the charm.” With these words, the socialist deputy, Marcos Bergaz, addressed the Minister of Territorial Policy, Territorial Cohesion and Water, Manuel Miranda, during the question about the completion of the sanitation and purification works of La Graciosa, formulated in the parliamentary commission of this Thursday in the Parliament of the Canary Islands.
The parliamentarian and socialist spokesperson in Teguise and La Graciosa, recalled that in 2016 the Canarian Government contracted, through the emergency procedure, the execution of the works of “purification and sanitation system on the island of La Graciosa”, which were stopped in 2018 when considering that the adjudication procedure presented nullity defects: “First attempt, failed, Minister”, Bergaz blurted out.
“Subsequently, in 2020 -continued the socialist deputy- an attempt was made to complete this necessary intervention by contracting a new construction project for the completion of the purification and sanitation system works on the island of La Graciosa. No luck, either, on this second occasion.”
“Currently, we are in the third attempt to conclude this necessary work, which will still take time, as they are still in the project drafting phase, Minister, in fact I ask you to confirm if they have already awarded the drafting service of the same”, Bergaz pointed out.
At this point, Minister Manuel Miranda, acknowledged: “We have had a problem, as always, and that is that one of the companies that incurred in reckless bidding, has now made a claim and we are waiting for the Contracts Tribunal to clarify this situation in order to start with the drafting”.
“We estimate”, added the Minister, “that this drafting could be between October 2025 and January 2026, to then request all environmental and territorial reports. Our forecast is that the works can be completed by the end of 2027, in the last quarter".
To finish, Bergaz pointed out that “hopefully, the third time's the charm”. “It is a complicated intervention, and I say this avoiding the occurrences that, from benches outside the socialist group, said that they would be finished in a summer or the pipeline of La Graciosa would be changed in two news flashes, Minister”, he concluded.
