Of the nine agents who joined the Local Police Force of Arrecife at the beginning of July, two of them have already left, after requesting a service commission in Tenerife. At the moment, the Local Police has 77 agents to cover a city of more than 60,000 inhabitants. "It is impossible to cover Arrecife because of these 77, not all are working," said the Councilor for Local Police, Jacobo Lemes, who indicated on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero, that this Tuesday morning there could be "nine or ten police officers on duty" for the entire city.
Faced with this situation, the mayor has expressed his "concern", since this Tuesday only one local police couple has been able to attend the retentions that occurred first thing in the morning on the Circunvalación. "We are understaffed. A local police couple cannot handle a traffic problem like this, it's ridiculous," Lemes pointed out. "The Local Police is for traffic, for accidents, for covering schools. It is very complicated, but it is what we have found and we have to fight with what we have," he indicated.
Therefore, Lemes believes that if the municipality could count on the agents that "Arrecife should have, probably there would be no problems" and situations such as the retentions in the Circunvalación could be solved more easily.
Faced with this lack of personnel, the City Council will try to cover the two vacancies that have been left, after two of the newly incorporated agents requested a service commission in Tenerife. "We will have to cover with service commissions from other municipalities, even from outside, in order to increase the staff. We will have to cover that gap. We have to have a presence in schools and it is impossible in all of them, so we go to the most conflictive ones. You have to dance with what you have," said the councilor.
New fines instructor
On the other hand, Lemes has announced that a fines instructor was already appointed last week. This issue was very controversial, since the Personnel Delegate of the Consistory, Narciso Pérez, denounced that those issued since March 31 could be irregular, since they did not have an instructor to process them. However, Lemes has assured that "even if there is no instructor, the fines are not lost, they continue on their way, their procedure does not stop".
