"This institution has the necessary land to make it available to the Ministry of the Interior, so that the SIVE is located in the agreed place, next to the current Telefónica facilities." That is what the Haría City Council finally stated last week, in response to the requirements that had been made from the Ministry. However, in that same document - signed on November 29 by the acting mayor, Víctor Robayna - he acknowledges that they cannot even prove ownership of that land.
In this regard, he begins by pointing out that "from the cadastral cartography it is clear that the plot" that they intended to transfer for that use is "entirely municipal property", being classified as "communal land". But immediately afterwards, he admits that this is not what officially appears in the Cadastre.
"The aforementioned plot appears titled in the name of Guinate Tropical Park property", he acknowledges in that document, and then insists that the Ministry can make use of that land. "In both cases, whether public or private, and having contacted the alleged private ownership, it states that there is no inconvenience in locating the aforementioned facilities in the agreed place", argues the acting mayor, without providing any document to support that alleged acceptance by the owners of the land, and appealing only to an alleged verbal agreement.
"How is the Ministry going to enter land that it doesn't know who it belongs to?"
"That document signed by Víctor Robayna is not serious even between individuals", questioned the PSOE councilor Celestino Socas, who insists that the person responsible for the SIVE finally starting to be installed at the Guinate viewpoint is the City Council, as his colleague Alfredo Villalba had already denounced.
"How is the Ministry going to get involved in doing work when the City Council says: I don't know if it's mine or private?" asks the councilor, who adds that the Ministry is not going to put work machinery in the place "if it doesn't know who it belongs to."
"In the same days we have heard Víctor Robayna say that the land is publicly owned, then that it is private and even that it is resolved. He is quite lost. In eight months he has not moved a paper, and now he is still lost," Socas has criticized.
"I refuse to believe that Víctor Robayna does not understand this matter"
In addition, he has described as "the height of hypocrisy" the participation of members of CC and the Haría government group, such as Víctor Robayna himself and the mayor Chaxiraxi Niz, who is currently on leave, in the concentration called at the Guinate viewpoint against the installation of the SIVE in that location.
"They have had eight months to find a solution," insists the councilor, who recalls that it was in March when the City Council held a meeting with the head of the Civil Guard in the Canary Islands and with other authorities, in which the agreement was reached for that alternative location. However, since then the transfer of that land had not materialized, and Haría's response finally arrived last week, with that document in which he could not even prove that he had ownership of the land.
"It is evidence that no one moved a paper, that no one paid attention to this matter and that this artificial conflict is generated by the lack of capacity of the City Council," the councilor pointed out.
Celestino Socas criticizes that, when that meeting was held in March in which the location of the SIVE was agreed, "no one was entrusted" to solve the problem, but was left "inactive".
"I don't believe that those responsible have no idea or don't know the difference between the property registry and the Cadastre, because in the end the one who signs that document is Víctor Robayna, who has been working in the Technical Office of Haría for several decades," he questioned, stating that the problem is not "that he doesn't know", but that "he hasn't put in the will".
"It seems that they are not aware that this is not a children's game. They are the representatives of the Haría City Council," added the socialist councilor. "Eight months pass and the City Council does not move a paper, does not give signs of life and does not comply with the commitment acquired," the councilor said on Radio Lanzarote - Onda Cero.
"We are working on finding an alternative"
However, despite the fact that the works have already started in the viewpoint area, Socas assures that they are "working on finding an alternative". In this regard, he pointed out that if it is finally demonstrated that the land offered by Haría is publicly owned, "as is implied" in the document, there should not be a problem in placing it in the agreed place.
"I understand the residents, but we are in 2021 and the SIVE should have been placed years ago," said Socas, who defends that the Ministry "did comply with the commitments", since they initiated the procedure to tender and award the work, while the City Council remained in "immobility".
For Celestino Socas, this situation reflects that the City Council "works by inertia, and that politicians are for decoration"
