"It is absolutely not part of my thinking that a spill is a possibility to create jobs in Lanzarote, much less see it as an opportunity to create employment. I think anyone who thinks that way would be crazy. I don't think so, nor does my party." That is what the PP councilor in Teguise, Roger Deing, has now come out to assure, after the controversy that has been aroused by the statements he made in the plenary session this Thursday.
Although Deign denies in a statement having launched that message, the truth is that La Voz de Lanzarote heard his speech live and, in addition, the councilor himself gave this media a copy of the speech he gave during the Plenary Session.
"And with 50,000 farms operating at any given time and only one Deepwater Horizon in 20 years, what would happen if we were to experience the next disaster and it reached our beaches? In that case, we would have to give a cleaning job to 30% of our unemployed population and surely at the end of the day we could have much cleaner beaches than we have at this moment, where this government group does not have a single team taking care of them. Tourism would not be affected except temporarily," his speech literally says.
Despite the fact that La Voz even published the image with the extract of that speech, the councilor assures that there has been an "erroneous interpretation" of his words. "In my speech and, in relation to the possible risks of the explorations alluded to by the political parties that are against them, I never praised the creation of employment in the event of a possible spill," the councilor insists.
According to his statement, "the only thing" he wanted to "express" is "the paradox that underlies the argument of a supposed disaster or danger used by those who are against oil exploration, especially when as humans we take risks every day."
"I end by reiterating," his statement concludes, "that at no time did I make the statements in the terms in which they are collected and that if that idea emerged from my words, it is obvious that I did not express myself with due clarity since such a thing was never, nor is it in my mind."
