The Cabildo will end up spending only on restoring the house it bought on Fajardo Street more than double what the property cost. This has been acknowledged this Friday by the president, Pedro San Ginés, who in response to a question from the Podemos group has confirmed that the bulk of the works is still to be carried out. This will mean a new investment of more than 1.3 million euros, which is added to the million euros that has just been awarded to Tragsa for new rehabilitation works.
In total, between the purchase of the house and the different works, the archaeological museum project will end up involving an outlay of at least 5 million euros, and that is if no new inconveniences arise. Furthermore, its opening continues to have no date, since the pending works cannot even be undertaken, at least until the planning is modified, which for the moment does not allow the planned interventions in this protected building that the Cabildo decided to buy five years ago.
Since that purchase was made for 1,650,000 euros, the institution has already spent one million euros more on different interventions. According to what the president finally made public this Friday in response to Podemos, so far there have been three assignments to Tragsa that are the ones that have been executed so far, and that have only involved interventions in the side warehouses. In addition, there is already another awarded for almost one million euros more to restore the main part of the property, which is added to the one that must be undertaken later for the transformation into a museum. And that last phase, according to the president, will imply, among other things, "tearing down some partitions".
Long list of assignments to Tragsa
The first assignment to Tragsa, worth more than 260,000 euros, was to prepare the project. The second was to restore only the side warehouses of the property and was awarded for 398,845 euros, but shortly after a modification of the project was made and the budget was increased by 38,427 euros more, upon finding more damage than initially anticipated. Finally, also for those same warehouses, a third assignment was made to the same company, for a value of 168,283 euros.
In addition, among the expenses that this project has entailed so far, there are also almost 80,000 euros of "expenses for study and prior analysis of the house" carried out in 2014, that is, after having made the purchase, and a supervision report from the College of Architects that cost 5,252 euros.
Furthermore, as La Voz de Lanzarote revealed two weeks ago, a new assignment to Tragsa has also just been awarded for 981,769 euros to intervene now in the main building. And according to the project, the intervention will only be to restore the property, mainly due to the problems presented by the structure and the damage caused by the water evacuation system. However, these works do not include any work related to the subsequent transformation into a museum, as specified in the project itself and in the authorizations it has received.
Precisely for this reason, the Podemos group asked in this Plenary "how much is expected to be necessary to invest to be able to open the museum according to the original project", and the answer has been that another 1.3 million more would still be pending, specifically 1,340,972. The figure, which could actually increase, arises from subtracting from the original project, budgeted at 2,322,742 euros, the first rehabilitation works that are going to be undertaken now, and which they say represent 40% of the total project. The rest, moreover, cannot even currently receive permits, so there is no date to start nor therefore is there a date to know when this museum could open its doors, which for the moment intends to open in a testimonial way, with the opening of two side warehouses in which the works have already finished with years of delay.
San Ginés again shields himself in Nona Perera and praises her "honesty"
To answer these questions that Podemos had registered for this Plenary, the president has decided to include a report in the agenda. In it, he has dedicated most of the time to again defend his intervention in the purchase of the house and to unload the responsibility on who was then the head of Heritage, Nona Perera, of whom he has praised her "honesty" for the statements she has made in recent days, in the midst of the primaries in which she has prevailed by one vote over Carlos Meca as the next candidate of Podemos to the Cabildo.
In those statements, the official has repeated what she already said in her day before the Plenary, that is, that she issued a favorable report to the acquisition for the patrimonial values of the property. However, both five years ago and now the opposition criticized and continues to criticize the political decision to make that expense at that time, when the island was in full economic crisis, as well as that San Ginés continued to participate in the negotiations with the owner after starting a sentimental relationship with her daughter.
In addition, it was also reproached then that prior reports were not made on the state of the property -in which San Ginés now affirms that "hidden defects" were found-, as well as that a claim was not made to the former owners after detecting them.
"From report to settling of accounts"
However, the president has prevented the groups from talking about the issue during the Plenary, arguing that it was a "report" and that it is a "prerogative" of the president to give them the floor or not. This has generated moments of tension not only at the end of the report but throughout the plenary session, in which different spokespersons have tried to express their criticisms and raise new questions beyond the aspects that the president has limited himself to underline.
In addition to facing the spokespersons of all the opposition groups, the president has threatened to expel several councilors, making warnings to both Carlos Meca and the socialist councilors Marcos Bergaz and Ariagona González.
"He has turned a report into a settling of accounts. With some group and with some spokesperson who is too occupied with his dream", Bergaz has reproached the president, in possible reference to the continuous allusions of the president to both Meca and the result of the Podemos primaries. "Your warnings sound more like censorship and a desire for us not to speak", Bergaz has questioned in response to the threats of expulsion that San Ginés has repeated.
