"It's like El Lute accusing the Civil Guard of stealing." This is how the mayor of Haría, José Torres Stinga, dismissed the criticisms made by various political groups against the development of the General Urban Planning Plan (PGOU) of his municipality today. He did so on the Buenos Días program on Radio Lanzarote, where he tried to minimize the effects of the criticisms and where he made it very clear that "some" of the signatories do not have the political or moral stature to question the processing of a document that in his opinion has been exemplary.
José Torres Stinga insisted that the General Planning Plan of the municipality "has been agreed with the residents" and a large number of allegations from individuals have been accepted to include them in the planning. In this way, he rejected the opposition's doubts about "lack of citizen participation", warning the rest of the groups that he will not give in to pressure "to leave the Plan in the hands of the usual speculators."
Last Wednesday, the opposition groups of Haría: Partido de Independientes de Lanzarote (PIL), Asamblea Conejera (AC), Partido Socialista Canario (PSC), Alternativa Democrática de Haría (ALDEM) and Partido Nacionalista de Lanzarote (PNL) made public a joint document in which they announced a block of allegations and lashed out at the government group for "little transparency" in the processing of the document.
"Behind these attacks are the business interests of a few. If not, how can it be explained that Pedro de Armas, Dimas Martín's PIL and Juan Ramírez are joining forces. Furthermore, they cannot accuse us of obscurantism when they have been given all the information they have requested," said Torres Stinga, who was open to continue accepting suggestions for the Plan "as long as they are based on general interests."
The northern mayor recalled that during the process of exhibiting the progress of the Plan, the details of the text were explained in the socio-cultural centers of the different municipal payments. He also pointed out that the document was officially presented during the past Environmental Conferences of Haría. "And on none of the occasions were the representatives of those parties present," he added.