The PSOE of Lanzarote has denounced that Oswaldo Betancort has approved a budget for the Water Consortium "without incorporating new investments in hydraulic infrastructure, once again evidencing that the water emergency he proclaimed and extended was a political scam, a 'setup' with no real effect on water management on the island".
The general secretary of the PSOE of Lanzarote and deputy in Congress, María Dolores Corujo, emphasizes that "this budget confirms what the socialists have been warning about from the very beginning: the supposed water emergency was a farce, it has neither brought more resources, nor more works, nor solutions for the citizens." Corujo recalls that "Betancort justified that declaration by assuring that it would allow access to more funding and expedite through urgent channels the necessary contracts to reinforce the island's hydraulic system, but not a single investment that has been executed during this time has been processed by expediting contracting nor has additional funding been accessed as a consequence of this declaration."
For the socialist leader, "Betancort's own actions contradict the narrative he himself constructed." "He who declared an emergency saying it was essential to bring in investments and speed up works now presents a budget without a single real investment. There's no need to interpret anything: it's enough to compare what he promised with what he has done," states Corujo, who "considers that the water emergency has been shown to be a setup rather than a management tool."Corujo also recalls that "this inconsistency occurs in a context where supply problems continue to affect about twenty towns on the island, with repeated outages every week and a network that has suffered structural deficiencies for decades." "While the population continues to suffer the consequences of erratic management, the president of the Cabildo and the Water Consortium takes refuge in headlines that his own budgets later contradict, making it clear that that emergency was nothing more than a scam," he denounces."Lanzarote does not need more artifices or more emergency narratives: it needs certainties, works, and results. If this budget demonstrates anything, it is that Oswaldo Betancort's water emergency was a political scam that has brought neither investment nor real solutions to this island," Corujo concludes.
