The Island Water Consortium Assembly approved a budget of 7.5 million euros this past Tuesday for the year 2024.
In the Assembly held in the Cabildo's plenary hall, in addition to the municipal representatives from the municipalities of Arrecife, Teguise, Tías, and Yaiza, the Cabildo's comptroller, the acting secretary of the Island Corporation, the deputy director of the Cabildo's Legal Advice, the acting manager, and personnel assigned to the Water Consortium attended. However, the municipal representatives from San Bartolomé, Tías, and Haría, from the PSOE, were not present.
The Minister of Water, Domingo Cejas, regretted that "the mayors of the municipalities governed by the PSOE, San Bartolomé, Tías, and Haría, did not attend the Assembly, and were not represented in it, which I consider an irresponsibility as a consortium member and shows a lack of interest in solving the problems of the Integral Water Cycle in each of those municipalities."
The municipal representatives who did attend the meeting asked the questions they considered in relation to the budget and were duly explained, and also recorded their concerns regarding issues related to projects affecting the water supply in their municipalities, agricultural water, and other issues of insular interest.
In this sense, the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort, thanked "the willingness and commitment of the representatives of the municipalities of Arrecife, Teguise, Tinajo, and Yaiza for attending the Assembly for which they were duly convened since last week and, in a gesture of responsibility, unanimously approving the budgets of the Lanzarote Water Consortium."
"I hope to have the presence of all the mayors in the next Assemblies, given that this is the appropriate forum to debate and raise the concerns of the municipalities and the search for solutions for the island of Lanzarote. We would be pleased to listen to them and not just read them through press releases and writings," added President Oswaldo Betancort, clarifying that in addition to the budget established by the Consortium, the Cabildo will invest in water matters the economic items from the FDCAN funds, from the Government of the Canary Islands, as well as its own funds from the island institution to recover a "dignified management of the water service on the island of Lanzarote and La Graciosa."
On the other hand, the budgets of the Island Water Council, Inalsa, and Eólicas de Lanzarote have also been approved, documents that, on the one hand, required the correction of some accounting errors, which had been repeated in the past, despite the annual warnings made in the internal control reports; and on the other hand, open the way to the investment of projects and subsidies.