Coalición Canaria Lanzarote describes as "serious and false" the accusations made by the PSOE, in which it has stated that the president Oswaldo Betancort has authorized “eight more hotels in Lanzarote”.
“What the Socialist Party has done is not only a crude political manipulation, but an authentic lie. The Cabildo of Lanzarote does not authorize building permits for hotels, because it does not have urban planning powers. The only power of the Cabildo is to grant tourist authorizations, and the PSOE knows it perfectly well. They lie with full knowledge of the facts,” said the island secretary of the nationalists, Migdalia Machín.
“It must be remembered -adds Machín- that as soon as they arrived at the Cabildo, the colleagues came across a ruling from the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands that warned the previous socialist government, chaired by Dolores Corujo, of its obligation to resolve the Papagayo Arena file, since if it continued to delay it as it had been doing, it could be incurring a crime of malfeasance by omission.”
“That was the legacy that the socialists left us: a file paralyzed for years and a serious judicial warning for not complying with the law. Therefore, the current government group has done what it had to do: act in accordance with current legislation,” he insists.
In this sense, the Secretary of Organization, Echedey Eugenio reiterates that "the building permits are the exclusive competence of the town councils, such as those that have been granted, for example, by the Tías Town Council, governed by the PSOE itself". “It is at least cynical that the same party that grants building permits from its town councils now intends to blame the Cabildo for exclusively authorizing what the law requires to be authorized from a tourist point of view, in accordance with the favorable technical and legal reports issued by the area of Classified Activities and Tourist Planning".
Furthermore, Coalición Canaria recalls that "the third Modernization Plan of Puerto del Carmen exceeds the permitted beds by more than 1,400, according to the Island Planning Plan of 1991".
The nationalists emphasize that "modernization plans are an opportunity to reduce tourist beds, not to increase them, and that it is contradictory that the PSOE of Tías, promoter of said plan, has promoted a proposal that exceeds the established limits, while criticizing the Cabildo for complying with its powers in matters of tourist authorizations".
"In addition, it has been precisely the government group of the Cabildo, chaired by Coalición Canaria, that has taken firm and concrete measures to order the tourism model and protect the territory," they continue.
Likewise, they have added that "in this mandate nearly 2,000 tourist beds have been withdrawn from the market whose licenses had expired, something that the previous socialist president could have done and did not".
“What the Socialist Party is doing is degrading politics to worrying levels, using lies as a tool of opposition. They have no limits. The PSOE has consciously chosen to abandon institutional rigor to settle in disinformation and personal attacks. Not everything is worth it,” they say.
Thus, Echedey Eugenio emphasizes that “land management is more than an electoral banner and our island is plagued with bad socialist decisions where they have had responsibility. There are those who talk about the territory and fill their pockets when it is their responsibility and those of us who truly dedicate ourselves to protecting it.”
Finally, Coalición Canaria urges the PSOE to “abandon the strategy of hoaxes and begin to respect the intelligence of citizens and institutions, because Lanzarote deserves a serious opposition, not a permanent campaign of poisoning.”
