The mayor of Teguise, Oswaldo Betancort, has requested the declaration of a situation of water emergency in La Graciosa, in order to "obtain the legal capacity so that the Consortium can accelerate the procedures for the execution of work and repair of the defective hydraulic system" of the eighth island.
“Once the residents of the island are being supplied with the provision of drinking water through a tanker and the broken pipe is being inspected by Canal Gestión, we have to move heaven and earth to put an end to the supply problem on the eighth island with all the guarantees that this will not happen again”, Betancort declared.
The mayor has also questioned the statement sent this Monday by the Cabildo, in which he defended the order of investments established for the island network of pipes. “It was the Consortium's own councillor who spoke of priorities, making it clear that neither La Graciosa nor its residents have been, during these 3 years, nor are they today, one of the government's priorities", the mayor reproached. "Now that a new breakdown is causing a supply crisis for the citizens of the island, I would like them to explain the timing of that ambitious investment plan, which we doubt will even be drafted in the next 8 months of the legislature”, Betancort added.
In addition, he recalled that the City Council has delegated powers in terms of water to the Island Consortium of Lanzarote. For this reason, he insists that he has requested "on several occasions an urgent meeting to address the water crisis that is affecting thousands of people in La Graciosa”.
“We are waiting for a response to that urgent request to the Consortium and also to the request to renew the network of pipes that supply the eighth island, but we are tied hand and foot if there is no support from all administrations and this problem is not addressed with the necessary rigor”, defends Oswaldo Betancort, assuring that “if he could declare the emergency automatically, he would have already done so, as has happened on other islands in the face of a real emergency”.
“It seems that La Graciosa does not exist on the map of public powers of the Government of the Canary Islands or the Cabildo of Lanzarote or perhaps it is that running out of a drop of water is not considered an emergency, but given the passivity of the Socialist Party that governs on this island and in the Archipelago, we demand that said emergency be declared as soon as possible in order to undertake all the necessary works, both in La Graciosa and in the rest of the island of Lanzarote”.
“For those who doubt the will of the Teguise City Council, tell them that we do not have the power to convene the Consortium or seat all those involved, because if not, I would have already done so, have no doubt, and what is happening in the eighth of the Canary Islands, can happen in another point of the island, but I don't know what the residents of La Graciosa have to do to be considered full citizens”, the mayor asks himself in the face of the "negligence and abandonment of the Cabildo or Government of the Canary Islands at present”.
