The Podemos Group in the Cabildo of Lanzarote has denounced that the Water Consortium waived collecting more than 50 million euros in fees from Canal Gestión Lanzarote after the negotiated procedure that substantially modified the conditions of the contracting specifications. According to the purple formation, if the minimum canon percentages established in the contract had been maintained, that is, 4% for canon A and 50% for canon C, the Consortium would have received almost 2 million euros more each year, multiplied by the 30 years that the concession lasts.
"Taking 2015 as an example, the Water Consortium should have received 2.3 million euros in variable fees, but only received 437,920 euros, by reducing canon A to 1%, which is calculated based on the company's income from the sale of water, and canon C to 6%, corresponding to subsidies and aid received for desalination," the formation explains. "Canal benefits from more than 1.5 million euros per year for this last concept alone," he stresses. The initial specification established that half of that money from aid and subsidies would go to the Consortium, but in the negotiation with Canal de Isabel II it was allowed to lower that canon C from 50% to 6%. And this, "extrapolating the 2015 data and in the scenario that these subsidies do not increase even more, means that the Consortium waived some 27 million euros only in that concept," denounces Podemos.
Precisely these "enormous reductions" in the canon percentages, among other "surprising alterations", are what led the TSJC to order a review of the award procedure for the integral water cycle, in a ruling that the president, Pedro San Ginés, had kept hidden. "Pedro San Ginés sold us that this company was coming to give us millions of euros in works as if it were a sister of charity or a charitable organization, but the reality is that what Canal did was save tens of millions of euros that should have been entered into public coffers, in exchange for supposed works with which to manage that money at will," denounces the spokesman for Podemos, Carlos Meca.
"Forgives millions to Canal while talking about raising the price of water"
"If anyone has kicked a goal here, it certainly hasn't been the citizens of Lanzarote," said Meca in response to statements made by San Ginés to defend the contract with Canal after the TSJC ruling. "The president insists that the company offered almost 40 million euros more in investments, going from the 15 that were required in the specifications to the 54 million that it committed to invest in works, but he forgot to tell us that those 40 million extra in supposed works came out of the pockets of the citizens of this island, who should have received much more in the form of a fee for the coffers of the Water Consortium," insists Meca, who denounces that San Ginés forgives millions of euros to this company while now talking about raising the rate that the island's residents pay for water.
In addition, he adds that "to the scandal that this kind of confidence trick scam represents, which even taking the works as good meant losing at least 15 million euros, are added the doubts that these works arouse, whose results are still not seen." And it is that although Canal assures that it has already executed more than 80 percent of the committed investments, Meca insists that "unusually they still do not reduce water losses."
"Now we are beginning to understand why San Ginés negotiated with the company forgiving more than 50 million euros in fees and decided to multiply the amount of works in investments by four. Works whose contracting would be processed directly by Canal Gestión in the first five years of the concession," says Meca, who recalls the corruption cases that weigh on that company and on several of its directors for rigging contracts, inflating invoices and distributing commissions. "Perhaps that explains why San Ginés earnestly asked Canal de Isabel II to keep Gerardo Díaz in his position as manager at least until the works were finished, a request he made when Díaz had already been arrested and charged with corruption in his previous stage at Canal," maintains the spokesman for the purple formation in the Cabildo.
"Very serious explanations about the ruling on the Hydrological Plan"
In addition, Podemos has described as "very serious" the explanations given by San Ginés about the ruling that declared illegal the water monopoly established by the hydrological planning of Lanzarote. "To assure, as the president did, that 'if Canal Gestión does not cover the production costs, because the income from tourist water is lost in a very large percentage, it would be necessary to obtain them by raising the price of mains water', is tantamount to recognizing that San Ginés had a prior unwritten agreement with Canal Gestión to close or seize desalination plants", says Meca.
"Of course, the way in which he seized the Montaña Roja desalination plant invites suspicion that this agreement existed, even risking sitting in the dock in order to benefit the interests of a company that he had already favored, according to the TSJC, to award him the water business on the island. San Ginés insists that private desalination plants have been prohibited for 30 years on the island, but large clouds are gathering over why it was decided to act against them shortly after Canal Gestión took over the management of the water", assures the spokesman for Podemos.
