The title of this article is much more faithful to the mercantilist drift that the PSOE of Lanzarote has entered into in the provision of dependency services, than to the slogan they repeat throughout the country: "people come first" or "we will not leave anyone behind." A catchphrase that they repeat here and there, Dolores Corujo included, to do just the opposite of what they say here.
The opposite of what they say because, it is precisely the people - users of dependency services - who have told the president that they do not want NGOs, which have been providing and building this type of service for decades, to stop doing so in favor of private companies, affecting their quality of life.
The opposite, because while the president publicly shows her consideration towards AFA, assuring them in her own office that she would never put their services out to tender - according to her directive - months later she awarded them to CLECE, breaking her word and without having recovered the assets transferred to AFA until 2026 when the PSOE co-governed and they directed the Social Welfare Area.
The opposite, because while the president shows her deep respect for ADISLAN, she does not even deign to receive its board of directors to face the music and explain directly the reasons why she also wants to dispense with this NGO with fifty years of service behind it, covering the shortcomings, not to say the embarrassments of the administration.
If for the same reasons the services currently provided by EL CRIBO are also put out to public tender, then the Cabildo will have left behind all the NGOs, without exception, that today provide direct dependency care services on behalf of the island government.
If in life doing the opposite of what you say is a fraud, when it is done by the person who holds the highest political responsibility on the island, that is what we have in the Presidency of the island government, a fraud.
But if he also lies to the plenary, to the NGOs, and to public opinion to justify his position, in addition to a fraud, it is something else.
And it is that in the plenary in which we asked the government to adhere to the social agreement, the president hid behind two blatant lies in order not to do so: the first is that we had all approved in plenary to put the services out to tender, knowing that the only one who approved it was the Governing Council, merely reporting it to the plenary without us ever supporting such a decision; and the second was when she assured that ADISLAN's services are already out to tender and it would be a serious problem to suspend the procedure, knowing equally that she was lying because it is false that they are already out to tender.
At first, I thought that Dolores Corujo, her president in pectore, Carlos Espino, and her cabinet, were only moved by the same obsession of the mandate: to blame me for all the ills of Lanzarote and, in this case, for the need to regularize the contractual relationship with these NGOs, which is the only truth they have told, even if it is a legacy of the PSOE for which I never blamed them.
Later I came to the conclusion that, in addition, they intended to erase from the collective memory the many and large infrastructures that we had built and put into service in past mandates, a large part of them supported by ADISLAN and AFA, and by the hand of the then Minister of Social Welfare, Marciano Acuña, whom we miss so much.
We allocated enormous resources to build large disability care centers, which we equipped and put into operation where in some cases there was only a plot of land, such as the "Julio Santiago Obeso" Social Rehabilitation Unit, or the "Dr. Domingo De Guzmán" Senior Care Center, the latter put into service by AFA.
Others we fully equipped and put into operation, such as the large Disability Care Center (Day Center and Residence) or the Early Care Center for Minors, in both cases through ADISLAN, and in all cases co-governing, either with the PSOE or with the PP.
However, neither blaming me for the situation, nor erasing all traces of Coalición Canaria's management at the head of the Cabildo, explain so much damage to so many people or the inadmissible contempt for decades of work by these NGOs. The insistence on awarding these services to private companies, against the wishes of the users and refusing to adhere to the restricted tender for NGOs promoted by the Government of the Canary Islands through the social agreement, can only be due to obscure interests that no one has explained.
Let us not forget that April 13, the date on which the social agreement will be fully operational, is just around the corner and by then neither will the Cabildo have taken possession of the assets transferred to AFA until 2026, nor will ADISLAN's services have been tendered.
That is why we insist on asking the president to reconsider and reflect, to listen to the families, the NGOs and the island's own town councils, who are asking her to stop this mercantilist drift and adhere to the social agreement.
President, we are still in time to stop this nonsense, if you do so we will maintain our commitment to simply congratulate you, because rectifying is wise and the families and users of these services deserve it.
*Pedro San Ginés, deputy spokesperson for the Nationalist Group CC-PNC in the Cabildo of Lanzarote