The Socialist Party of Lanzarote has denounced "Oswaldo Betancort's inability to stop the Mácher solar plant despite the fact that Loli Corujo's Government rejected the project twice". The socialists recall that in 2021 and 2023, the government presided over by Corujo "rejected the implementation of photovoltaic plants in this area, considering them contrary to the sustainable and participatory model that the island institution has always defended."
María Dolores Corujo, general secretary of the PSOE in Lanzarote and deputy in Congress, has expressed her “most resounding rejection of the declaration of general interest of another solar plant in the agricultural area of Mácher”. According to Corujo, this decision by the Government of the Canary Islands was made under the “unacceptable passivity of Oswaldo Betancort”. “It has been Oswaldo Betancort's inaction that has allowed this project to prosper without opposition,” she adds.
María Dolores Corujo has expressed her concern about the “lack of coordination between the Government of the Canary Islands and the Cabildo of Lanzarote”, which is even more evident with the statements by Oswaldo Betancort, who admitted through statements having found out about the matter “through the media”, declaring that “the councilor swears to me that a photovoltaic plant will not be installed in Mácher.”
For the PSOE, "this episode reveals Betancort's lack of leadership and the weakness of his role before a Government of the Canary Islands that puts speculative interest before the defense of Lanzarote". “It is serious that, instead of firmly defending the interests of the island, he seems to be unaware of or ignore the maneuvers of the Executive where his party governs,” Corujo pointed out.
Likewise, Corujo has lamented that "Clavijo discredits his own party colleague, Oswaldo Betancort, evidencing the fragility of a Government that, far from seeking consensus, imposes decisions that threaten the sustainable development and autonomy of the institutions of Lanzarote."
The PSOE highlights that "the imposition of a new photovoltaic installation in Mácher is especially serious, given that there is already another project in process that has generated strong controversy". For the Lanzarote socialists, the attitude of the Government of the Canary Islands, presided over by Fernando Clavijo, makes him a “middleman” of speculative interests that hide behind sustainability to invade agricultural land of undoubted landscape and economic value.
“We defend the implementation of clean energy, but not at the cost of our landscape identity nor through projects that do not respond to a general interest. Lanzarote has an energy zoning and we cannot allow the indiscriminate installation of infrastructures on rustic land for environmental protection, as this project in Mácher intends,” said María Dolores Corujo.
