Erik Martín Oliva will be the new manager of the Lanzarote Island Water Council, replacing José Juan Hernández Duchemín in the position. Although the appointment has yet to be published in the official gazette and the contract signed, both the Governing Council and the General Board of the Council have already approved this designation, in meetings held on July 23 and 31.
The election of the new manager has not been made by competition but by the procedure of "free designation". According to La Voz from the Cabildo, two other candidates applied to occupy this position, although the Governing Council opted for Martín Oliva. Among other things, this engineer is the author of the new Island Hydrological Plan, which is still pending final approval for years.
This change in management coincides with the indictment and subsequent accusation of Duchemín in the Stratvs case, and also with the new investigation ordered to be opened by Judge Silvia Muñoz for the alleged incompatible payments that this official receives from the Cabildo. Since the day after that news became public, Hernández Duchemín has been on leave from the Corporation.
As confirmed to La Voz from the Cabildo, the official has been on leave since January 22 and shortly after, on February 16, "submitted his resignation as manager" of the Council and proposed that they look for "a temporary replacement" or that they officially designate "another person", which is what has finally been done.
In addition to these two judicial proceedings, Duchemín will also testify this Friday, together with Pedro San Ginés and the manager of the Water Consortium, Domingo Pérez Callero, before the head of the Court of Instruction Number 2 of Arrecife, Jerónimo Alonso Herrero, to answer for alleged crimes in the seizure of the Montaña Roja desalination plant.
A "provisional" manager for seven years
José Juan Hernández Duchemín was appointed manager of the Island Water Council in 2008, after the position became vacant. However, although in theory it was a "provisional" appointment, he has remained in this position for seven years. After his statement as an accused in the Stratvs case (for authorizing the winery's discharge system, despite reports warning of a high degree of contamination), the judge decided to transfer his statement to another Court, so that it would open new proceedings outside of this case, finding indications of other crimes that had nothing to do with his indictment in Stratvs.
In his statement, Duchemín himself acknowledged that he holds several positions in the Corporation that would be incompatible, and that he charges for all of them. In this regard, the judge recalled that the Statute of the Island Water Council, approved in 1997, specifies that the position of manager is "incompatible with that of other public or private functions also paid." However, Duchemín stated that in addition to that he holds "other positions in the Cabildo and they are important." Specifically, he specified that he is also "secretary of the fire consortium", that he performs functions "in the Tourist Centers" and that he is "assigned to the General Secretariat". And for all this, he "receives the corresponding remuneration in payroll", as he explained himself.
During his statement, the judge also asked him about his training to hold these positions, to which Hernández Duchemín replied that he has "Bachillerato and COU" and that he does not have "any diploma", not even "a course" related to water, despite being manager of the Council.
The Council, without the necessary "technical solvency"
After La Voz de Lanzarote published the news about the opening of new proceedings ordered by the judge, the president of the Cabildo called a press conference in which he defended the official and the payments made by the Corporation, although he also acknowledged that during all these years the Water Council has not had the necessary "technical solvency".
San Ginés justified the need for that "technical solvency" as to why they had now decided to officially fill that manager position. Among other things, he referred to the need to approve the island's Hydrological Plan (prepared precisely by the one who will be the new manager). The document, which was re-released for public display last summer, should have been approved seven years ago. Due to this delay, the Government of the Canary Islands made public last January the start of the process to suspend the Hydrological Plan of Lanzarote that is still in force, to avoid a "foreseeable" sanction from Europe, which has opened a file against Spain. The reason is that the deadlines for adapting this and other hydrological plans to the European Directive approved in 2000 have been breached.
San Ginés also referred then to the need to "regularize" the situation of the plants that "compete" with Canal Gestión, after the privatization of Inalsa; and to the rainwater works that need to be undertaken, to provide a solution to the historical problems of flooding suffered by the island and, very especially, the city of Arrecife. "All this requires a technical solvency that, honestly, we did not have during these years," he admitted.
Among other things, Hernández Duchemín was the one who signed the report proposing to open a sanctioning file to Club Lanzarote last September. And San Ginés based himself on that report to order the seizure of the desalination plant and the treatment plant the following day as a precautionary measure within that file. Between Duchemín's first report and the material execution of the seizure, only 48 hours passed and reports from technicians or lawyers of the Corporation were not previously collected.