Pedro San Ginés, as president of the Island Water Consortium, Domingo Pérez, manager of the Consortium, and Gerardo Díaz, manager of Canal Gestión, are the only three members of the Control and Monitoring Commission in charge of "overseeing" Canal Gestión. Thus, they are the only ones who attend the meetings of this body, created by the Consortium and which must "ensure the correct fulfillment of the contractual obligations" of the company. This composition does not correspond, however, with what is established in the rules that must govern the contracting of the water service, which the Consortium itself stipulates.
According to the specifications of administrative clauses that include how that body should be, the Commission will be "chaired by the President of the Consortium or whoever he delegates, and formed by a member of the General Assembly determined by the Assembly itself (of the Consortium, made up of the mayors of the seven municipalities and the president), the Secretary of the Consortium or person to whom he delegates (who may be personnel of the Island Council of Lanzarote), the one designated by the Consortium and a representative designated by the concessionaire".
Despite this, neither the secretary, nor any official of the Cabildo to whom he has delegated or any of the mayors that make up the Consortium assembly are part of this control body. This has been confirmed by the Cabildo, assuring that "only those three people" make up the Commission.
That body also had the advice of external lawyer Ignacio Calatayud until last March. Specifically, at the same time that he was advising Canal Gestión, the lawyer was hired by this same company to provide advice to the Consortium in this Monitoring Commission. All this, while also advising Pedro San Ginés on the seizure of the Montaña Roja plant from Club Lanzarote, which later passed into the hands of Canal Gestión. In addition, despite the fact that it was the company that contracted his services, Calatayud's salary was deducted from the payments that Canal Gestión must make to the Consortium, according to Gerardo Díaz before the judge in the case for the seizure. That is, Canal Gestión's lawyer provided advice to the Consortium under two contracts with Canal (the last one concluded in March 2015) that were paid with public money and that in two years have cost the island coffers close to 40,000 euros.
5 meetings in two years
On the other hand, in the specifications for contracting the water concession, it is specified that the Control and Monitoring Commission "will meet on a regular basis once every two months and on an extraordinary basis whenever it is considered convenient at the proposal of its President", Pedro San Ginés. But, although this is established, the truth is that the frequency of these meetings has been much greater.
According to what has been confirmed by the Cabildo, in the last two years "five meetings" of the Commission have been held. Specifically, apart from the constitution of that body, in 2014 there were three meetings and in 2015 only two have been held. In addition, the Commission has not met for six months, as the last session took place in April.
Thus, in the last half year these functions of "supervision and inspection of the management of the concessionaire" have not been exercised in the scope of that Commission. Not even after the appearance of fecal contamination in the water of Nazaret and Las Cabreras was a meeting of the Commission convened, despite the fact that this body, according to the specifications, "will understand any problems that may arise in the service".
Among the tasks of this body are, in addition to "ensuring compliance" with what is established in the contract, the analysis of all economic and technical documentation referring to the management of the concession, the "monitoring and supervision of the works" carried out by Canal, the "control of the adequate use of the facilities", the performance of audits to verify the "efficiency and effectiveness" of the service, the "monitoring" of the investment plan or the "performance of water quality audits".
