The mayor of Candelaria, Mari Britoconfirmed yesterday in Onda Tenerife that she has already exercised the right to appeal, “because I believe in Justice”, to the order of the magistrate of Court Number 1 of Güímar who is investigating her, along with three former mayors of the Güímar Valley (Carmen Luisa Castro, Gumersindo García and José Juan Lemes), for an alleged crime against the environment and prevarication due to the discharge of industrial waters into the sea from the Polígono, which since 2013 is owned by the municipalities of Candelaria, Güímar and Arafo.
The socialist councilor is confident that the resource can prosper, because “the only thing I have done since I came to the Mayor’s Office in 2015 is work to end the discharges, something that today is solved with the start-up of the industrial water treatment plant that builds the Insular Water Council, which is the one that had the competences to do it”.
In addition, she recalls that “since I have been mayor I have not stopped working to follow the plan of stages that marked us after the Urban Conservation Entity that should have been established in 2013 did not go ahead and even the Candelaria City Council came to request, before the lack of authorization to discharge into the sea, that the submarine outfall be closed, but a contentious court did not allow us to close it”.
Mari Brito insists that “I have a clear conscience, because we did not create that problem, we have found the problem and the only thing we have done is work intensely to solve it, obtaining discharge authorization and building a treatment plant that was not even done by the Mixed Association or by the Government of the Canary Islands, which were the ones that should have done it before the city councils received it”, he comments.
The also president of the Fecam does not consider that this judicial process can separate her from politics, as could be given under the letter of the PSOE’s code of ethics, which provides for the expulsion of militancy once an oral trial is opened. “The only thing I have received is the support of my teammates, even from other parties, which I appreciate. My party knows everything that has happened and everything I have done to solve this complex problem, and is informed of the entire procedure. It is true that there is an ethical code, but this has been evolving and the opening of the oral trial is not enough, ”she indicates.
