The president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort, stated last Friday in an appearance in the plenary session of the island corporation, that “in these first hundred days of government of CC-PP the institution has opened to society”. Likewise, he denied any preferential treatment to Canal Gestión after the PSOE denounced that it will pay with 68 million euros of public money for the repairs of the water system on the island.
In this line, Betancort insisted that “this house and the Presidency office have had and will have the doors open to all citizens and all groups. I have opened the Cabildo every Monday afternoon from five to nine”, as he announced in his speech at the request of the socialist group.
The president took advantage of the speech to review the main actions carried out by the Government group and, in this regard, confirmed that the Tahíche Nursing Home will be tendered before the end of the year, after having terminated the contract with the awarded company, and assured that “the six million euros that were lost due to the inability in the management of the previous Cabildo will be recovered”.
Betancort also asked for the collaboration of the socialist deputies in the Parliament of the Canary Islands for the third Plan of social and health infrastructures of Lanzarote and thanked the councilor of the area, Marci Acuña, for having achieved "social peace with the Third Sector".
Regarding the water crisis, Oswaldo Betancort reported on several minutes of the Insular Water Consortium of the previous legislature, in which repair works of the drinking water distribution network were approved, which were finally not undertaken. “The difference is that you approved (in reference to the PSOE) that 15 streets were going to be repaired in 2020 and 2021, and now there are already 38 streets, and you also approved, and it is on record, that in the years 2021, 2022 and 2023, there would be a contribution from the Cabildo to the Consortium of three million euros. That is written, the difference is that we are going to do it”, the president guaranteed.
“Having clarified this issue, we deny any preferential treatment towards Canal Gestión, a company that we supervise as is the duty of the Consortium, in compliance with the contract, and we will warn it to comply with its obligations, but we will also comply with ours”, Betancort concluded, pointing out that “the current Government group will not deviate from the roadmap that we have set, and we will break with the apathy and conflict that has led the island to paralysis in the last four years, and we promise you that they will not stop us”, the president of the Cabildo sentenced.
“The citizens of Lanzarote have lost 800,000 euros and that is giving away money”
Oswaldo Betancort also explained that in September 2022 the Cabildo terminated the contract with Cobra Instalaciones y Servicios, S.A. for breach of maintenance of the mills in the Los Valles Wind Farm; on that date only five of the ten wind turbines installed were working.
In his speech, the president of the Island Corporation provided a report from Eólicas Lanzarote, dated October 19, which indicates that in 2021 the profits of this public company, attached to Inalsa, were 1,200,000 euros, with the 10 mills of the Los Valles Wind Farm in operation, while last year, with half of them operating, these amounts were only 438,000 euros. “The citizens of Lanzarote have lost 800,000 euros. That is giving away money”, he lamented.
In April 2023, the faults of 3 of the broken wind turbines were repaired, “because the elections were coming and we had to hurry. And now this Government group is faced with a bill of 300,000 euros that we owe to the company Cobra to which the repair of the mills was requested, but without a contract”.
Review of some of the actions in the first hundred days
Likewise, Oswaldo Betancort reviewed all the actions carried out in these first months of government by the CC-PP pact and congratulated the vice president, Jacobo Medina, as well as each of his councilors. In Public Works, he highlighted the start of the works of the José Molina Orosa Hospital car park, or the improvement works of access to the hospital center, in addition to the contracting of the company Tragsa for the project for the repair of the Los Hervideros road.
In environmental matters, he pointed out the contracting of Gesplan for the drafting of the project of the Special Plan of the Protected Landscape of La Geria or the Governing Plan of Use and Management of the Chinijo Archipelago. “A department, the Environment department, that we found poorly structured and underfunded economically and to which we are going to give a great boost”.
Regarding the primary sector, he valued the consensual work that is being done through the Primary Sector Board; the increase in subsidies to farmers and ranchers, as well as the improvement of European aid for sweet potatoes that will go from 395 euros to 800 euros per hectare, among other issues.
On the fact of rescuing the Enogastronomic Festival Saborea Lanzarote, which will be held again this November in La Villa, Betancort stressed that “it is not an event of Teguise, but an economic model of Lanzarote, of employment development and positioning of the Km 0 product, of research and training. We are an example in the world of what the gastronomic-tourist model is”.
He also congratulated the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Tovar, for the preparation of the draft general budget for next year and the tender for the Job List of the Cabildo of Lanzarote; and in Transport he mentioned the extension of line 62 of Playa Blanca or the preparation of a Mobility Plan “that did not exist”, as highlighted by the president of the Cabildo.
