The Extraordinary General Assembly of the Lanzarote Water Consortium served this Monday to review the first month of public management of the integral water cycle after the resolution of the contract with Canal Gestión Lanzarote. Mayors from the island learned firsthand about the scope of the work carried out since June 2nd to guarantee the continuity of the service and lay the foundations for a new public management model.
During the session, the manager of the Consortium, Fernando Fernández, informed in a detailed and simultaneous manner all members of the General Assembly, including the president of the Consortium and the representatives of the seven town councils of Lanzarote, about the actions taken since the assumption of direct management of the integral water cycle. The accountability allowed for a global vision of the intense administrative, technical, and organizational work carried out during this first month to guarantee the continuity of the service, maintain the supply to the population, and ensure an orderly transition towards the new public management model.
The president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote and the Water Consortium, Oswaldo Betancort, highlighted that "in just one month we have demonstrated that the Consortium was prepared to assume one of the most complex public management operations in the recent history of Lanzarote and La Graciosa. We have had to reorganize an entire administrative and technical structure without stopping for a single day an essential service for the citizens".
For his part, the Minister of Water of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Domingo Cejas, pointed out that "the citizens can be assured that every decision made during this first month has been oriented towards a single objective: to guarantee the water supply and consolidate an effective, transparent public management prepared to face the important challenges that we still have ahead".
The information conveyed to the Assembly highlights the extraordinary dimension of the service reversal process, which has required coordinating simultaneous actions in human resources, public procurement, IT, economic management, customer service, water production, billing, legal advice, and operational reorganization.
300% budget increase
Among the main actions carried out during this first month, the expansion of the Consortium's budget by more than 300%, bringing it close to 30 million euros, stands out, as does the incorporation of 205 workers through subrogation, multiplying the organization's staff by 22.
All of this has involved the complete adaptation of the administrative structure to manage payroll, Social Security registrations, labor procedures, and the integration of new personnel while fully maintaining their acquired rights. Despite this complex operation, the Consortium even managed to advance the usual payroll payment by two days.
Decrease in scheduled water outages
The technical reorganization of the system has also made it possible to optimize the planning of water production at desalination plants, reorder supply schedules, and significantly reduce programmed service interruptions, going from more than 300 monthly outages to 121 planned interruptions.
Another of the priority tasks has been the comprehensive adaptation of the billing system, with the opening of new bank accounts, the contracting of payment gateways and POS terminals, as well as the modification of subscriber and billing management programs to adapt them to the new public model.
Administrative activity also reflects the intensity of the process, with the opening of 249 new files on the Gestiona platform solely during the month of June, practically the same figure as that registered between January and May of this year. In addition, 40% of all invoices processed during 2026 were managed solely during the past month, while the Consortium simultaneously advances in the contracting of economic assistance and the technical maintenance audit necessary to face the liquidation file of the contract with the previous concessionaire.
More aid for deposits and cisterns
The Assembly also unanimously approved the rest of the matters included in the agenda, among them the new corporate identity of the Integral Water Service of Lanzarote and La Graciosa, the delegation of powers for the contracting of the electricity supply and the declaration of the service as essential. Likewise, as a matter of urgency, it gave the green light to a budget modification intended to financially provide for the call for subsidies for the repair and construction of cisterns and the acquisition of water tanks corresponding to 2026.
Once the public exhibition period for this budget modification concludes, presumably after the summer, the Consortium will proceed to pay the aid corresponding to the 2025 call and will immediately open the 2026 subsidy call, with the aim of continuing to strengthen the water storage capacity of families and agricultural and livestock farms in Lanzarote and La Graciosa.