The PSOE de Lanzarote has accused the president of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort, of a new "exercise of obscurantism" in the management of the Consorcio del Agua, after rejecting the creation of a political-technical commission for monitoring the intervention of the service, a decision they consider "essential to guarantee transparency, control and institutional coordination".
In a press release, the socialists have shown their concern given the refusal of the Consortium's president to "establish a stable monitoring body" at a "particularly delicate" moment, in which they have warned that Lanzarote and La Graciosa "are playing for the future of an essential service after years of continued deterioration".
“We are facing one of the most important decisions that have been adopted regarding water in Lanzarote in decades, and what Oswaldo Betancort does is act again from opacity, denying information and blocking any control mechanism,” has denounced the general secretary of the PSOE in Lanzarote and Deputy in the Congress, María Dolores Corujo.
"Hide" information from the administrations that are part of the entity
Corujo has stressed that the seriousness of the situation lies in the fact that Oswaldo Betancort “continues determined to keep hiding information not from third parties, but from the administrations themselves that are part of the entity and that, therefore, must participate in decision-making and in its follow-up”.
"It is incomprehensible that, in a matter of this magnitude, information is being denied to the consortium administrations. The Consortium does not belong to a single administration, it belongs to all the institutions that comprise it, and the minimum requirement is transparency and institutional loyalty," he maintains.
Corujo recalls that the city councils are those who are on the front line providing answers to the citizens regarding supply problems, which is why they consider it unacceptable that they are excluded from the information and from the monitoring of key decisions.
Ensure monthly follow-up meetings
The proposal to create a political-technical monitoring commission sought to guarantee monthly follow-up meetings, access to information and coordination between administrations to evaluate the development of the service's intervention.
However, he denounces, Oswaldo Betancort has rejected this proposal. “After almost three years of lurches, of announcements that are not fulfilled and of an evident degradation of the service, the minimum that can be demanded is control, information and monitoring. And that is precisely what has been rejected,” he criticizes.
Given this situation, Corujo has warned that “the socialist mayors will request the convening of as many assemblies of the Consortium as are necessary, through the procedure foreseen in the statutes, after their request to convene an ordinary session has been rejected”.
“We are not going to allow the role of the city councils to be emptied of content nor that we are excluded from a decision that directly affects our municipalities. If the ordinary route is denied to us, we will use the mechanisms established by the statutes,” he/she has pointed out.
The PSOE has insisted that the intervention of the water service marks "a turning point for the island, after years of deterioration in the provision and of erratic decisions" by the current governing group, chaired by Oswaldo Betancort. “Lanzarote gambles its future on how this process is managed. It is not a minor or technical issue: it is a structural decision that affects the well-being of the citizenry, economic development, and the sustainability of the island,” Corujo has warned.
Finally, the socialists have concluded that they will not allow "that this stage be managed from opacity nor without institutional control," has concluded.