To the misfortune of many citizens, Mariano José de Larra's "Come back tomorrow" is still very relevant. Back then, at the beginning of the 19th century, this magnificent writer coined the expression to denounce the unbearable wait of an entrepreneur who was only demanding that the Administration attend to his requests with some speed.
It can well be applied to another case that concerns us, despite the fact that neither the businessman is French nor are we in 1833. Everything is closer: I am referring to the farmers of La Villa, Tao, Mozaga and other towns on the island, and it happens in 2019, they are also told "Come back tomorrow".
Come back tomorrow because today there will be no agricultural water for your farms, and we will not notify you about when it will be possible, so that you do not plan irrigation, to further despair.
Come back tomorrow because today Canal Gestión cannot provide you with a water meter for the field, which they say nicely with a "in response to your connection request number X, for the supply of drinking water for agricultural use, we regret to inform you that these authorizations are currently suspended in the area where your farm is located due to technical limitations", in the case of a recent letter dated March 28 that affects a request from the Tao area, with dozens affected in the Municipality and several hundred on the island.
I told you tomorrow, because the technical limitations have not been overcome because, among other reasons, the Teguise City Council has not granted the Consortium the authorization, inter-administrative cooperation they call it, to undertake the necessary investments, despite having requested it a year ago, despite the silence of the Mayor on an issue that affects many residents of the Municipality.
Didn't you understand me? Tomorrow, because the problem has also reached regenerated or purified water, which, regardless of the preferences we have regarding its agricultural use, has seen how even a former Councilor of Agriculture of the Cabildo, a resident of Nazaret to be more precise, denounced its cut for weeks.
An unbearable come back tomorrow, past or next term because the homework is still not being done in this matter, despite spending so much on using, as Jurado would say, phrases such as how important our farmers are, the primary sector or the landscape of Teguise and Lanzarote, to which agriculture owes so much.
And in the face of this, it is time to rebel and say that tomorrow is today, because the heroes of the countryside do not understand the lack of response, because they share Larra's lament "Woe to that tomorrow that will never come!" or his idea that "a great person must have been the first to call laziness a mortal sin".
Let's stop straining the rope through inaction or silence; let's prevent farmers from answering us one day "I won't come back tomorrow, Toño!" because that will be when we all truly lose.
Or are they waiting until ten before the elections to solve it?
By Marcos Bergaz, PSOE candidate for Mayor of Teguise
