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The project to construct a desalination plant in the Axarquía area on the east of Malaga province continues to be immersed in political wrangling, becoming a weapon of war between the centre-right Partido Popular (PP) and the Socialist PSOE parties.
The PP mayor of Torrox, Óscar Medina, on Tuesday accused Pedro Sanchez's PSOE government of a "serious offence" by allocating 250 million euros to finance a desalination plant in Morocco, whose works have already begun, having committed to the Axarquía plant in 2023.
Medina asked PSOE if "this is how he intends to guarantee local production and not increase dependence on third countries" and called for an urgent action plan to start the desalination plant, which he said, "remains blocked by the lack of momentum and funding".
He said that 13 months have gone by since the government announced in last year's local election campaign the commitment to allocate 100 million euros to this necessary infrastructure. "This is less than half of what has already been allocated to the neighbouring country," Medina pointed out.
"The socialists are trying to justify this inaction by confusing public opinion, despite the fact that the government itself has confirmed in writing, in a parliamentary response, that this work of general interest of the state is within its competence and that, a year after announcing it, it has still not entrusted the management to the public company that should execute the project."
He went on to say, "The abandonment of Malaga and the Axarquía by Sánchez's government is unacceptable" and that "it is for issues like this that the people of Malaga deny them their support in each election process."
Finally, the mayor also criticised the hundred or so fines that the government has imposed on Malaga farmers for the demonstrations last February. "These are just demands to save the Andalusian and Malaga countryside, whose response from the government has been an iron fist and a lack of dialogue," he said.
The socialist spokesperson at Torrox town hall, Mari Nieves Ramírez, has called on Medina to "abandon fake politics, the only certainty is that there are 100 million for a desalination plant in the Axarquía that will be built by Pedro Sánchez's government and zero euros from Moreno Bonilla," she said. She also urged the mayor to explain "where the desalination plant that he proposed or the desalination plant that Moreno Bonilla sold , all of which is false and a lie as the passage of time has shown."
Ramírez regretted Medina's fixation "with criticising everything that affects the relations that our country maintains with the neighbouring country, we hope that this is not just another episode of the grotesque behaviour to which the PP has accustomed us in Torrox, such as when councillor Salvador Escudero, who has not been dismissed, compared migrants to animals".
She concluded, "The competence in water matters in our area is the sole and exclusive competence of the Junta de Andalucía and, in the face of this, the government of Moreno Bonilla, however much the PP of Malaga insists, is neglecting its functions."
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