The proximity of the General Elections has become even more apparent with an announcement by the governing party concerning the Rules Dam.

The Minister for Agriculture, Isabel García, announced that the “future signing” of anti-protocol for the eventual execution of the pipe network to distribute water from the dam to the coast for irrigation purposes.

Bear in mind that not a sausage has been heard during the last four years of the present term of office, until now, two months before the elections.

This promise joins a host of other benevolent moves such as tax cuts, etc, etc – The Government evidently feels that four years of austerity measures will be forgotten, not to mention a whole litany of corruption cases, as voting day approaches.

The dam itself stands as a monument to administrative stupidity from successive governments of all colours. It has stood around a decade collecting water, only to be flushed down the riverbed to the sea as there is no distribution network to deliver the stored water to where it was intended. It does not even have a hydroelectric capacity.

Had this pledge to get things moving been made at the beginning of the legislative period in 2011, it would have carried more credibility, whereas delivered as electoral lubrication, one gets the impression that it will be quietly forgotten if the governing party is voted back in, or dumped on a new incoming Government, who will do their best to push it under the carpet as well.

If every politician involved had had his salary stopped until the irrigation conduction system was up and running, it would have been completed long ago.

(Editorial/Opinion: Rules Dam)