The PSOE of Lanzarote has denounced this Monday that Oswaldo Betancort rectifies three years late on water matters, after the opening of the contract termination procedure with Canal Gestión, a subsidiary of Canal de Isabel II, for the provision of the integral water cycle in Lanzarote and La Graciosa became known. For the socialists, this new turn only confirms the political failure of the Cabildo president after a legislature marked by improvisation, lurches, and the absence of a serious roadmap to address one of the main problems the island suffers.
The general secretary of the PSOE of Lanzarote and deputy in Congress, María Dolores Corujo, has pointed out that what happened “confirms in the clearest possible way that Betancort has made Lanzarote lose three years while the citizenry continues to suffer water cuts, a collapsed network and now also a tariff increase”.
“Betancort has dragged Lanzarote into three years of chaos with water to end up where the PSOE had already started. He has spent an entire legislature lurching, chaining contradictory announcements and without being able to define a serious solution for the island's water crisis. And the most serious thing is that while he improvised, the citizenry continued to pay the consequences,” Corujo stated.
Three years of swings
The PSOE maintains that Betancort's water management has been characterized by permanent improvisation. First, it proposed allocating public funds to investments and actions that contractually corresponded to Canal Gestión. Afterward, it dismissed the Consortium's manager. Later, it declared two water emergencies that have proven useless, because they have served neither to end the cuts nor to correct the network's collapse. Then it opened the door to a transfer of the contract and now ends up activating the termination.
“That has been Betancort's journey with water: three years of whims, sudden changes, and rudderless decisions. The serious thing is not only that he has changed his mind again and again; the serious thing is that he has done it while Lanzarote continued suffering recurrent supply cuts and unsustainable losses in the network”, Corujo pointed out.
Corujo has stressed that the Cabildo has gone from one approach to another without a clear strategy, confirming a way of governing based on reaction, not on planning. “Betancort has never had a roadmap. He has been improvising on the fly, late and badly, in the face of a problem that demanded rigor, political courage and defense of the general interest.”
The assignment did not close the lawsuits
The PSOE has recalled that it already warned of the risk involved in attempting a transfer of the contract without legally shielding the island. The party maintains that that operation could not be presented as a solution while Canal did not renounce its litigation rights nor its possible economic claims.
“They wanted to sell us the transfer as a clean exit, and it wasn't. The PSOE clearly stated that a change of operator could not be facilitated while leaving lawsuits, claims, and legal uncertainty alive. One could not turn the page without properly closing the previous contract and without protecting Lanzarote against possible future costs. Today it is clear that we were right,” Corujo affirmed.
An exhausted model with the stamp of Canarian Coalition
The PSOE of Lanzarote has also wanted to emphasize that this story bears the stamp of Coalición Canaria from beginning to end. The party recalls that Canal Gestión's entry into the island occurred in 2013, during the full period of Coalición Canaria at the head of the Cabildo and the Consortium, and that since then the balance has been devastating: deterioration of the service, constant cuts, insufficient infrastructure, skyrocketing water losses and, now, a new increase in the price of water.
“This story has the stamp of Coalición Canaria from beginning to end. It was Coalición Canaria who brought this model to Lanzarote and it is Coalición Canaria who has sustained it for years. The result is plain to see: disastrous management, deficient service, and citizens paying more and more for water that still doesn't arrive,” Corujo has denounced.
For the PSOE, the problem is not only Betancort's poor management in these three years, but also the defense of a model that has amply demonstrated its failure.
The PSOE opts for a public model
María Dolores Corujo has insisted that the root of the problem is that Oswaldo Betancort continues not to commit to a public management of water, keeping Lanzarote trapped in a business logic in an essential service.
“A company is not an NGO; a company comes to manage water to make money. Today it has been called Canal Gestión and tomorrow it will be called something else, but if the same private model is maintained, Lanzarote will remain trapped in the same logic: benefits for the company and problems for the citizens,” he/she stated.
The general secretary of the PSOE of Lanzarote has clearly defended that water cannot continue to be treated as a business and that the island needs a public, transparent, and effective solution.
“Water is a basic right and cannot continue to be subjected to a mercantile logic. The PSOE advocates for a public model because only through public management can the general interest be guaranteed, reinvestment in the network, reduction of losses, and true planning of the infrastructures that Lanzarote needs,” he added.