The Socialist Party of Lanzarote has requested the immediate resignation of the Councilor of the Water Consortium, Domingo Cejas, “in the face of the serious water supply crisis that is hitting the island and affecting all municipalities”. “At a critical moment for citizens, the continuous cuts in the water supply have affected up to 37 towns in a single day, leaving thousands of families without a basic and vital resource. It is an unprecedented crisis that has not been answered to the height of the gravity”.
The PSOE of Lanzarote attributes this crisis "to the breach of promises by Coalición Canaria and the Partido Popular, pointing out their lack of capacity to solve the problems and their disinterest in demanding that the concessionaire company, Canal Gestión, comply with its obligations."
The island secretary of the PSOE of Lanzarote and Deputy in Congress, María Dolores Corujo, has pointed out that “the paralysis and lack of a clear model on the part of Oswaldo Betancort and his government is intolerable. Instead of taking urgent measures to face the water crisis, his government has remained immobile, allowing the problem to worsen day by day. This lack of action has not only worsened the supply, but has also demonstrated an alarming inability to manage a resource as essential as water, vital for daily life and the economy of Lanzarote”.
"The volume of losses in the network is intolerable, the water cuts are continuous and the delays in the conduction of water to the north of the island are incomprehensible. In addition, agriculture continues to suffer from the lack of a regular supply, while discharges of untreated water into the sea reach alarming levels, affecting both the environment and our image as a Biosphere Reserve", adds Corujo.
“Water is an indispensable public good for life and a human right that must be protected by responsible policies”, she emphasizes. “It has been more than a year since Coalición Canaria and the Partido Popular assumed the government in the Cabildo, and far from improving the situation, the production and supply of water have become an increasingly serious problem. They have demonstrated their inability and their disinterest in a problem that seriously affects people's daily lives. Oswaldo Betancort has not acted because the pressure that worries him is that of the businessmen, that the citizens do not get water from the tap does not take away his sleep”.
Betancort, without direction
The socialists have recalled "the contradictions" of Oswaldo Betancort. “A few weeks after taking office, he gave a press conference with Canal Gestión and the councilor responsible for water, Domingo Cejas, in which he announced a millionaire injection of public money into Canal Gestión. Subsequently, neither the Cabildo of Lanzarote nor the Government of the Canary Islands allocated a single euro of investment for the improvement of water infrastructures in Lanzarote. Later, he uses the work advanced by our government during the last legislature to say that, now yes, he is going to demand from Canal Gestión. Water management in Lanzarote has no direction”.
Corujo has once again put on the table the need to recover the public management of water on the island. “The current situation requires an approach that removes water management from private interests and puts it directly at the service of the general interest, guaranteeing a sufficient supply and at fair prices for families and businesses”.