MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay's Tourism Minister says Argentine President's words were harmful

Viera regretted that President Fernández would echo fake news

Uruguay's Tourism Minister Tabaré Viera Wednesday said that Argentine President Alberto Fernández's remarks that no water came out when people opened the faucets in Montevideo had resulted in numerous cancellations.

“In Montevideo, they open the faucets and the water does not come out,” Fernández had said last Sunday when inaugurating the first section of the Néstor Kirchner gas pipeline.

Viera argued that he was “very sorry that a president says fake news, a news that clearly harms Uruguay, which is not so, because we all know that in Uruguay we have difficulties with water, we are worried, but the water supply is assured.”

The Minister said that they had “news a few days ago of some cancellations in some hotels in Colonia that expressed the problem of drinking water and this caused us to go out to the press to clarify that the situation in all of Uruguay is safe in terms of water in sufficient quantity and quality. In any case, the greatest difficulties are in the metropolitan area, not in Colonia or Maldonado,” Viera added.

Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou said Fernández's words might have been driven by either “bad intentions, which I rule out, or simply out of ignorance,” because “if he reads on the internet he will immediately find out the correct information.”

Since April 26, the water-supplying company Obras Sanitarias del Estado (OSE) has increased the sodium and chlorides in the water in Montevideo and the metropolitan area.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Karina Rando insisted that the water coming out of the taps in Montevideo was “safe” and fit for human consumption after having stated on Tuesday at the House of Deputies' Health Committee that the water was “drinkable” and “safe” except for people with blood hypertension, or with kidney or heart diseases.