Inalsa for the politicians?

By Jorge Marsá From what I've read in the newspapers, there was little demonstration on Saturday: "The demonstration in defense of Inalsa barely gathers about 300 people" (La Provincia). Despite the failure, I think there were plenty of reasons to ...

January 29 2013 (13:23 WET)
By Jorge Marsá
From what I've read in the newspapers, there was little demonstration on Saturday: "The demonstration in defense of Inalsa barely gathers about 300 people" (La Provincia). Despite the failure, I think there were plenty of reasons to ...

From what I've read in the newspapers, there was little demonstration on Saturday: "The demonstration in defense of Inalsa barely gathers about 300 people" (La Provincia). Despite the failure, I think there were plenty of reasons to demonstrate against those responsible for the bankruptcy of the public company, against the island's political class that has managed it all these years. And against the current government group of the Cabildo, which is even making a fool of itself regarding the crisis of the island's two major public companies: a tender so poorly planned in Inalsa that it has been deserted and cosmetic measures in the Tourist Centers to avoid having to take the essential ones to stop the bleeding of the company. In short, if this were Denmark, we would be counting the resignations of politicians and technicians in the Cabildo of Lanzarote. But this is not Denmark, so it is to be expected that no one will take any responsibility for the failure of the island government.

Perhaps the low attendance at the demonstration is explained not by the protest against the politicians, but by the solution to the Inalsa problem proposed by the organizers. Perhaps the society of Lanzarote is not as conservative as those who called for the demonstration, and does not think that the remedy is to preserve the Inalsa management model of recent decades. That was, of course, the reason that made me stay at home: I cannot agree that the best solution for Inalsa is to leave it in the hands of Pedro San Ginés and Joaquín Caraballo, or that tomorrow it will be in the hands of Ástrid Pérez or, even worse, return to those of the PIL and we could find ourselves again with Plácida Guerra or a Martín at the head of the public company. Because even if the words were different, that is exactly what was requested in the demonstration: that the management of Inalsa remains in the hands of the political class that has led it to bankruptcy.

I do not dispute that, in general, one can be in favor of public management of a good like water. However, when we descend to the concrete, when the facts must prevail over ideology, we cannot ignore what public management of water means in Lanzarote: that the company continues to be directed by the island's political class, which is what it is, and there are no signs that we will have a very different one in quite some time. And since that management model has been a resounding failure, frankly, it does not seem that preserving it is the most intelligent thing to do.

If any progress is to be made in this matter in Lanzarote, there is no other option than to change the model. And any model I can imagine involves taking Inalsa away from the politicians. In short, asking for the privatization of Inalsa is the logical consequence of analyzing what has happened for anyone who does not let themselves be blinded by ideological prejudices. Another thing is how the privatization is carried out, because there are different ways to do it. What is surprising is that there is no discussion about the mess of the government group of the Cabildo, about the best way to privatize Inalsa and about whether the participation of the island's civil society in that privatization is possible and convenient, instead of insisting that Inalsa should remain in the same hands as until now, in those of the incompetent and corrupt island class that we have given ourselves.

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