A.A./A.C.
- The company Unelco has been up to its old tricks again in recent days. In fact, we have experienced a weekend that has resulted in all kinds of complaints related to what happened on Sunday, the day when not only did the power go out, but many people were left without all kinds of appliances.
- Yes, that's right, but I think we'll eventually find light in this particular tunnel. It's about time we put Unelco in its place here, as they did in Catalonia in the past. When one sees things happening like they did there or in other autonomous communities, one doesn't know what to think, whether they have sanctioning powers that we don't have or what, we don't know if the Spanish Government pays more attention to them than it does to the Canary Islands. I don't know what kind of formulas have to be used so that those who have powers in the matter understand that Unelco has to be stopped in some way. I hope this time it's the definitive one.
- If we're not mistaken, it's clear that the powers to impose sanctions, as the Government of the Generalitat once had, must be held by the Canary Islands Government through its Ministry of Industry. By the way, the only initiative that has been presented in Parliament so far has been the one transferred by your colleague from the Mixed Group, María Isabel Déniz. Do you think anything can be done with such a large multinational?
- I don't know if it's that big, because in Lanzarote it's proving to be very small, and that smallness is what we're all paying for and what's making us live through real hardships, hardships that we shouldn't have to go through considering the century we're in and because it's had more than enough time to adapt to the new clientele it had, which has been increasing a lot. Furthermore, it's unacceptable for a company of Unelco's stature to keep an island like Lanzarote in the conditions in which it keeps it. It seems to me a total and absolute lack of respect that deserves a reaction from the Government of the Canary Islands or whoever it may be. We don't care who does it, but someone has to assume the sanctioning powers and apply them.
- The fact is that this company, which charges a lot of money in Lanzarote, causes all kinds of disruptions, even to another company as important to us as Inalsa, to which they are causing tremendous damage.
- That's right, especially because most of the time they don't warn about the cuts. Curiously, yesterday (Tuesday) they did warn that they were going to cut the power for approximately three hours. When they warn, everything can be prepared so that nothing is damaged, but the bad thing is that they don't always warn and suddenly there is a blackout like the one we experienced on Sunday, which then turns into a real odyssey to get all the plants up and running, if some of the machine parts aren't damaged.
- These days we have had numerous calls from concerned citizens who don't really know whether or not it will do any good to go to the Cabildo's Consumer Office to file the corresponding claim for the disruptions caused. Are they doing the right thing in reporting?
- The Consumer Office has no executive power, but that doesn't mean that people shouldn't go there, because they have to vent somewhere. However, I'm not saying that everyone should go through the Office, just as I'm not saying that the Government of the Canary Islands and the Government of Spain don't listen to what the Government of the Island tells them. It wouldn't be a bad idea that, just as we have attached a whole dossier prepared by Inalsa's technicians so that it is known in detail what day, time, for how long and what were the reasons for the blackouts; we could also attach all the protests of the people of the Island who are logically complaining about what is happening. However, with that I don't want to force people to go through the Office. We hope that this time the Government will take action, because otherwise they will force us to make a citizen appeal for a more drastic measure to be taken.
- If political power doesn't respond, there will always be judicial power, right?
- Exactly; you know that the last time something happened, we already warned that we were going to go the criminal route. Either the Ministry of Industry takes action on the power cuts or we will go to the courts of justice via the criminal route.
- Last weekend, this newspaper reported the decision of the Administrative Court of Las Palmas, which was studying the PSC's appeal against the decree that allowed your arrival as president of the institution. A few days later, we see that there are no excessive political movements, that the socialists are not moving from their final position of supporting your mandate, right?
- The socialists already stated publicly that the objective of filing the appeal was not to change the presidency of the Cabildo, something that could not be understood due to the vicissitudes we went through at that time. The socialists always said that their only intention in appealing the way I came to the presidency was to clarify the process, to clarify doubts and so that a similar circumstance does not happen again in the future, which we hope will not happen again. The Court has said that no fundamental right was violated and that the legal services of the Cabildo acted strictly applying the current legislation. I understand, like most people on the Island, that the issue of the Socialist Party's appeal is over, although it hasn't excessively influenced the progress of the Cabildo either. There is no doubt that sometimes I remembered it and saw it as a thorn that was there, but it has already passed. I insist that it has never influenced the formation of the government group, and much less has it influenced me to work as president. We are going to turn the page, we know what has happened, we know what the courts think and now what we have to do is continue with the work. We have made so much effort to channel the main issues that concern the citizens of the Island that it is not worth wasting time or energy on anything else.
