"The only one responsible for the motion of censure not succeeding has been the PIL". This is how forceful the Podemos councilor in the Cabildo, Carlos Meca, has been, who has stated that his party was "willing" to enter the government in the first institution and to "demonstrate that things can be done differently". This is how he responded to what he claims is a "recurring criticism" but false, that Podemos has only entered politics "to denounce and protest". "We are clear that it was an opportunity to demonstrate that things can be done differently", he pointed out.
Meca recalled that since last August, when the PSOE left the government group of the Cabildo, Podemos defended "that Pedro San Ginés had to be removed from the institution, yes or yes", and recalled that his party proposed two alternatives for a motion of censure in October, which were not accepted by other parties at the time. However, on this occasion he points out that "much progress" had been made and a "common program" had been defined to form a new government, which would have been presided over by the head of the list of Somos Lanzarote. "But unfortunately, what has happened is that the PIL could have chosen between a government of change and keeping Pedro San Ginés and unfortunately has chosen to continue supporting the government that we all know, linked to corruption and mismanagement", he indicated, assuring that the rest of the parties were "totally willing to take the step". "It depended exclusively on the PIL taking it", he insisted.
In this sense, the Podemos councilor has branded as "absolutely regrettable" the statements of the PIL councilor in Haría, Iván Rodríguez, justifying the party's return to the government group. "And even less understandable coming from a person who is part of the Works Council of the Tourist Centers, with what it could have meant for the Centers that CC stopped interfering and governing them as they are governing them", said Carlos Meca, for whom it is "difficult to understand" that Rodríguez himself voted in favor of the PIL's reincorporation into the Government of Pedro San Ginés. "And I imagine that he will have to explain it", he added.
Podemos was going to take charge of the Water Consortium
Meca has also confirmed that, had the motion of censure prospered, Podemos was going to take charge of the Water Consortium and the Island Water Council. "Logically, with our discourse in the last two years, on the one hand denouncing what has been the management of water, which led to the public company having to be undersold to Canal de Isabel II, which we all know what surrounds that company", he explained.
The Podemos councilor believes that just in "investigating what is happening" there was already "a lot of work to be done within the management of water in Lanzarote". In this sense, he stressed that almost half of the water produced on the island is still not being billed, according to figures released by the Cabildo's own Data Center, "despite the investments that are supposedly being made on the island".
"The reality is that 25 million cubic hectometers of water continue to be produced and almost half of it is still unknown what happens to it. The usual discourse is that they are losses in the network and a part of fraud, which is recognized although it is not known how much it is, but the reality is that millions of liters of water and euros are being lost today without a serious attitude on the part of those responsible for the Council and the Water Consortium to know what is happening", considers Carlos Meca, who also understands that the management of treated water for agriculture in recent years "has not been adequate and water that was not suitable for irrigation has been served".
Finally, by taking over the Water Consortium, Podemos intended to promote the necessary soundings to determine the quantity and quality of the water in the Timanfaya aquifer, whose discovery was presented by the purple formation last year. "The Government of the Canary Islands continues to paralyze them", Meca questioned when talking about these pending soundings. And although the Canarian Parliament approved urging the Executive to carry out these last tests, they have not yet been carried out. For this reason, the Podemos councilor believes that if his party had assumed the presidency of the Lanzarote Water Consortium, they could have "taken the reins of these investigations". "In addition, we already have budget calculations and they are not at all high", he specified.
"We will continue to denounce the abuses of the government group"
However, given that the motion of censure has not prospered, Carlos Meca affirms that Podemos will continue to carry out a "critical and supervisory work from the opposition" and denouncing "the abuses" of the government group. "We will not lack elements, because the situation remains as regrettable as when we started the conversations", Meca pointed out.
In this regard, he has criticized the "new policy of runaway cronyism that CC has launched" and the fact that, to date, the budgets for this year have not even been presented. "It should be approved before the end of the previous year, but we are already halfway through February", he concluded.