The Ministry of Ecological Transition, Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning of the Government of the Canary Islands has reaffirmed in parliamentary committee its "commitment" to the completion of the purification and sanitation works on the island of La Graciosa, explaining that the delay is due to the fact that the file initiated in 2016 by Coalición Canaria did not comply with the Public Sector Contracts Law, so they have had to put it out to public tender again with a new file.
This is how the Deputy Minister of the area, Leopoldo Díaz, responded to a question asked by the nationalist partalmentarian and mayor of Teguise, Oswaldo Betancort, who blamed the current Executive for the delay, even pointing out that these works "have ceased to be a priority and urgent issue" and criticizing that "after two years they have not been able to unblock a multi-million dollar investment to solve an environmental problem on the island, for which they have not even touched it or to make a fish broth".
In this regard, Leopoldo Díaz explained that the administrative process of drafting the project is currently in the award phase and pending the formalization of the contract. "By having to turn the exceptional into normal, these problems occur", replied the Deputy Minister, who explained that "the tender has been awarded to a UTE formed by three companies, so in October or November we could have the drafting of the project and then we would go to the administrative approval process and the tender procedure for the works would begin in 2022".
"Our interest is to complete as soon as possible some works that were declared an emergency in 2016 and should have been suspended due to a formal defect in their processing", explained Díaz, who detailed the problems they have had to face.
The tortuous journey of this file
As he recalled in his speech, in 2016 the emergency processing was declared for the construction of the treatment plant and the sanitation system of the island of La Graciosa, by a file of environmental responsibility in relation to the existence of an imminent threat of environmental damage to the special conservation area of the Natura 2000 Network.
That same year, Canaragua Concesiones was awarded both the construction, for 2,560,200 euros, and the operation of the system for one year from the commissioning of the same, for 190,000 euros. In addition, Cristóbal Florido Molina was awarded the realization of the corresponding studies and technical assistance for an amount of 250,000 euros.
The Deputy Minister added that in October 2017 the extension of the emergency processing was declared for the contracting of the execution of the work and the following month the contracting was awarded, by emergency processing, of the actions involving the extension of the initial works and technical assistance, to the same companies to alleviate the persistent situation of serious danger that poses the imminent threat of environmental damage to the habitat of community interest. The awards were made for an amount of 2,274,648.44 euros to the company Canaragua Concesiones and for 155,481.40 euros to Cristóbal Florido Molina.
"In the acts followed for the processing of this file, the control body detected the existence of nullity defects for not having followed the legally established procedure in the Revised Text of the Public Sector Contracts Law. For this reason, since February 16, 2018, the aforementioned works and the actions related to technical assistance are paralyzed and on April 13, 2018 the record of receipt of the works carried out was formalized", they point out from the current Government, which took office less than two years ago.
"The problem that arose is that according to current regulations this project could not be carried out by emergency processing, since this type of processing was reserved for catastrophic situations", explained the Deputy Minister. "Both to continue the work and for its direction we had to go back to an open procedure of ordinary contracting processing through a public tender", explained Leopoldo Díaz.
At this point, the General Directorate of Water of the Government of the Canary Islands commissioned the company Alter Ingenieros SLU to draft the execution project for the completion of the sanitation, purification and discharge of wastewater on the island of La Graciosa, in May 2019.
In August 2020, the drafting of the construction project for the completion of the works was authorized, which, as he explained, "is currently in the award phase and is pending the formalization of the contract for its start in the coming weeks".