The Councilor for Culture and Tourism of the Teguise City Council, Oswaldo Betancort, together with the Councilor for Security and Emergencies of the Tinajo City Council, Antonio Morales, express the convenience of creating a central-northern community of Lanzarote, which could even include the municipalities of San Bartolomé and Haría in the future. In this line of work, they held a meeting last week in the municipality of Tuineje (Fuerteventura) with the representatives of the Association of Municipalities of Central South of Fuerteventura (MMCS), with the intention of learning about the work involved in creating it and the benefits that the integrated city councils have.
In addition to Betancort, the meeting was attended by the president of the MMCS and mayor of Tuineje, Salvador Delgado; the mayor of Pájara, Rafael Perdomo, and Rosa del Barrio, manager of the MMCS, an entity that since 1998 has been made up of the municipalities of Antigua, Betancuria, Pájara and Tuineje, occupying 61.08 percent of the island's territory, which represents a population of 44.44 percent of the total of Fuerteventura.
Concerned about the economic situation that "seriously" affects municipal policies, Oswaldo Betancort intends to launch a similar initiative in Lanzarote with the aim of reaching the minimum figure of 30,000 inhabitants, which would allow access to the institutional aid planned for this type of corporation.
This body would give access to the preparation and execution of common infrastructure projects that affect the associated municipalities, a fact that would enable comprehensive socio-economic development. There would be the option of requesting development plans and programs, as well as investments in infrastructure and common services that are the responsibility of the municipality in accordance with the provisions of the Law on the Bases of Local Regime.
Intermunicipal coordination
Likewise, the creation of this association would give way to intermunicipal coordination for the execution of programs, projects, studies and actions aimed at satisfying the social, cultural, health, recreational and service needs of the citizens integrated therein.
For Betancort, a project like this is necessary because "it reduces costs by uniting services that will be unaffordable for a single city council", although he recognizes that "the will of the different municipalities must be clear because problems may arise in the development process due to the lack of experience of working together". Therefore, Betancort added, "an association like ours should be strong enough to function, but also the city councils must be very integrated and must have an intermunicipal identity key".
To this end, the first objective must be to ensure that city councils obtain good financing, "not only from the Government of the Canary Islands but also from the Central Administration. There has to be a change of mentality and our governments must support this type of initiative decisively".
