The mayor of Teguise, Olivia Duque (Coalición Canaria), has intervened this Tuesday morning on the program Buenos días, Lanzarote of Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero to tackle the problems in the Technical Office of the Teguise council, which, as La Voz advanced, has more than 5,000 urban planning files pending processing.
The municipal leader has nuanced the words of her government colleague, the deputy mayor of Teguise, Rita Hernández (Partido Popular) and head of Tourism, Beaches, Urban Planning and Technical Office, who narrated on this same station a few days ago that the files without processing were due to the lack of staff.
In response to these statements, Duque has attributed the backlogs of these unclosed files to "a bad organization and a bad management within the Technical Office" and not to the lack of personnel. Furthermore, he has informed that they will address this issue at the pact table with the Partido Popular.
At the same time that she has assured that really around a thousand files are stuck, not 5,000, because the rest "are expired" and "have not been closed by the administration". The mayor of Teguise has recalled during her radio intervention that it is "the administration's duty to close them when they expire" or when the process gets stuck due to different assumptions.
The also organization secretary of Coalición Canaria in Lanzarote has informed that she has already conveyed on several occasions to her government partner that she must change the organization of the area, but that this has not yet happened. "The only thing left for me is to act myself," she added, at the same time informing that she has proposed to the insular representation of the Partido Popular that Coalición Canaria be the one to assume the Local Technical Office. "Many hours must be dedicated to it and if those hours are not dedicated, what happens, happens," she added.
Four jurists, three engineers and five quantity surveyors
Olivia Duque has indicated that the Technical Office's own employees have conveyed to her that the problem is not the lack of staff, but "the lack of organization" and has assured that these problems are causing "procedures to be prolonged more than necessary" and that "errors" are being committed. For example, she has pointed out that "documentation that should not be requested is sometimes being requested, because we are sending the neighbor to a place where we do not have to send them".
The municipal official has insisted that there is no lack of personnel in the area and has informed that there are three legal professionals in the municipal corporation and a fourth legal professional who is in charge of legal advice, to move forward with public works files and inter-administrative cooperations with the Cabildo de Lanzarote and the Gobierno de Canarias. Furthermore, she has assured that there are five quantity surveyors, two engineers in the area, a recent incorporation of another assigned to public works and a fourth engineer is expected to join.
"Our function is not to speak or make statements in some senses", she reproached her government colleague, "we do ourselves a disservice as political leaders because we have a very important professional value in the Technical Office", she added.
Olivia Duque has indicated that she will be making decisions in the Technical Office, trying to reach a consensus on them with the head of the area, Rita Hernández, and if not, she herself will make the decision. "I have to do it because it is my responsibility," she concluded.
