MRT demands that the mayor of Tinajo solve the "problems of running water supply"

The Renovating Movement of Tinajo assures that Jesús Machín is being "an accomplice of this third-world situation" and demands that he "face this serious problem and stop standing aside"

January 31 2023 (16:08 WET)
Antonio Morales, spokesperson for the Tinajo Renovation Movement
Antonio Morales, spokesperson for the Tinajo Renovation Movement

The spokesman for the Renovating Movement of Tinajo (MRT), Antonio Morales, has once again demanded this week that the mayor and his municipal government team "launch, once and for all, in coordination with the Island Water Consortium of Lanzarote, real and effective solutions to the continuous problems of running water supply that the municipality has historically suffered but, especially, in the last four years, after Canal Gestión was appointed as the successful bidder for the integral water cycle in Lanzarote and La Graciosa".

“We have been suffering water cuts in Tinajo for three and a half years, where the awarded company does not comply with the days it announces that there will be a water supply and many residents have received exorbitant bills”, warns Antonio Morales. “We are no longer talking about agricultural water not reaching the fields even twice a week, which has meant that planting has been abandoned in many parts of Tinajo, but about homes that receive running water only once or twice a week”, he denounces.

From the MRT they assure that the mayor is being “an accomplice of this third-world situation” and they demand that he “face this serious problem and stop standing aside”. “The mayor must put the supply of running water to the residents above the City Council's debts with Canal Gestión”, emphasizes Antonio Morales. "And it was not until the end of 2022 when the opposition of Tinajo became aware, through an official statement from Canal Gestión, that the City Council owed said company about 80,000 euros for the water service. That's when we understood why the mayor maintained a low profile in those claims that we asked him so much to transfer to Canal Gestión”, laments Morales, who acknowledges that the opposition still does not know today whether the Corporation has already paid said debt or not", Morales points out.

 

Proposals raised by the MRT

From the Renovating Movement of Tinajo they remember that they have not "stopped proposing alternatives to improve this water service in the municipality. Already in May 2020 this formation officially asked the mayor to address the Island Water Consortium of Lanzarote –of which the seven municipalities of the island and the Cabildo itself are part– so that it, in turn, would transfer to the company Canal Gestión Lanzarote the need to improve the service, as well as the veracity of the information that was being provided to the users of Tinajo. There was no response to that letter, but in September 2021 we again raised the appearance of the mayor to explain his efforts regarding this water problem”, recalls the MRT spokesman, who regrets that “then our request was not included in the agenda of a plenary session that the mayor also announced but never convened”.

 

Unsplit invoices and cut-off notices

Among the anomalies detected by the MRT in the municipality, its spokesman warns that there are dozens of cases of residents who, for not having direct debit payments, have not received any invoice for months but, suddenly, have been notified with cut-off notices.

The MRT precisely presented in February 2022 a motion that was approved by the Plenary unanimously for the City Council and the Consortium to correct these continuous problems. “We asked the City Council to demand that the Island Consortium and Canal Gestión accurately inform about the days that there will be a water supply and that the affected residents be informed in case of breakdown or meter changes”, Morales specifies.

Also “we requested then that a response be given to invoices that are a nonsense, totally disproportionate to the actual consumption, worth 800 and up to 1,000 euros, or that at least subscribers be allowed to split those payments, but the company continues to force users to pay without analyzing any case previously”, criticizes the MRT spokesman. “What is not admissible is that the mayor did negotiate the splitting of the City Council's debt with Canal Gestión and that the supply was not cut off, but that he does not claim one thing or the other in the case of our residents”, he questions.

The MRT also claimed in its proposal “that Canal Gestión should also take charge of the costs of the tanks that residents have been paying each time there are water cuts”. However, the plenary agreement approved unanimously, “as usual with our mayor, has once again remained a dead letter and without being executed”, explains Antonio Morales.

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