Yes We Can Canary Islands requests the convening of the Tenerife Waste Management Monitoring Commission
· Councilor Ruth Acosta defends that “the meeting of this Commission and the real participation of citizen and research organizations in the announced planning is of vital importance.”
The Sí Podemos Canarias group in the Island Council of Tenerife, through its advisor, Ruth Acosta, questioned the Government group during the last Plenary Session of the Corporation about when the call for the Waste Management Monitoring Commission of the Island of Tenerife and the Organic Fertilization Board will be made.
After learning that the Cabildo will hold monthly meetings with the Department of Ecological Transition, Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning of the Government of the Canary Islands, within the framework of progress in regional and insular waste management planning, Acosta highlights that "the call for a meeting of the Waste Management Monitoring Commission and the participation of citizen and research organizations in the announced planning is of vital importance."
Regarding the request for a meeting of the Monitoring Commission, Acosta affirms that “we are not asking for anything new, but rather demanding that legality and statutory commitments be complied with, since the Statute of the Commission has been breached in 2019 and so far in 2020.” The counselor has also pointed out that "meanwhile, between 450 and 900 million euros have been put out to tender for the Special Territorial Plan for Waste Management (PTEOR) without allowing the legally required monitoring of the public administrations, political groups, society and the business sector of the entire process with due transparency."
And all this in the middle of the process of the largest tender and award in the history of the Canary Islands. The public, social and business sectors have not been able to exercise their role in monitoring the waste policy of the Cabildo de Tenerife.
The advisor of Sí Podemos Canarias has noted that "in the meetings that have been held so far in the Government of the Canary Islands, representation from the Government of the Canary Islands itself, island councils, municipalities and waste management companies have attended; however, it does not appear that civil society and academic entities have been convened, as provided for by current legislation on participation."
In this sense, Ruth Acosta has defended that "the challenges in terms of waste require the active participation of all the agents involved in the more than necessary change in the selective collection model, as well as a transparent calendar of objectives and priorities of the Monitoring Commission, given that the European Union (EU) is demanding an urgent update of the PTEOR, which currently fails to comply with the relevant community legislation, with Tenerife currently incurring possible sanctions for non-compliance with the obligations arising from its Directives and state transpositions”.
Acosta advocates that there be "real participation of groups and organizations in the planning of waste management, which is not limited only to the information processes and presentation of allegations, since when we talk about the design of a new waste management model must be worked on in a coordinated manner, this must also include social agents, in many cases, closer to the solutions than from the Industry."
The counselor has described this matter as one of the most important and urgent pending problems to be solved on the Island, and recalled that "we are in a position to be sanctioned for non-compliance with the legal obligations of the EU in this matter, so there is a serious danger of being blocked from accessing the European Structural Funds for non-compliance with the Law, or the application of fines that Tenerife citizens will end up paying."
For all this, Acosta defends that "as soon as possible, we demand both the call and the establishment of a calendar of meetings of the Tenerife Waste Management Monitoring Commission, with a minimum of five in 2020, recovering the two omitted in this mandate."
"When we talk about real participation in planning, we mean that, in the design of a new waste collection and management model, the European Commission, the Ministry and Department of Ecological Transition, the Cabildo, the City Councils and the social agents directly involved must coordinate." “A new model to adjust with extreme urgency to European legislation can only be built together, since it cannot be designed without contemplating selective, common and efficient collection.”
A task that the Tenerife Council has unanimously approved, in the Tenerife Waste Plan, which can stimulate or block with its fiscal and economic policies and priorities in the short and medium term, with the enormous budget it manages and which is nourished by the rates paid by the citizens and businessmen of Tenerife.
