Lagoa council has ‘debureaucratised’ its contract procedure for its water customers.
The council admits that the current multi-document contract is not necessary and that 'administrative modernisation will encourage simplification of procedures in accordance with the provisions of Decree-Law n.º 194/2009 of 20 August, which establishes the legal regime for the municipal supply and distribution of water, sanitation, urban waste water and municipal waste management."
Despite this highly bureaucratic legal framework the council has decided that for new contracts from January 2nd 2014 water contracts will be simplified to reduce waiting times for customers, decrease costs and enable a more 'personalised customer care experience from technical and admin staff,' and lastly to help reduce file space.
The council now has a simplified contract procedure using the same old contract form, but the need for several accompanying bits of paper has been done away with. The customer just agrees that if he does not own the house where water is needed then he will be severely punished and beaten. So customers fill in the old form and present their ID. This in itself is a big step forward with the contract “based solely on statements made by the client, and if there are falsehoods he will be subject to the consequences.”
Meanwhile in the heady field of water and sewage, Águas do Algarve has launched a public tender for a new treatment station to serve Vila do Bispo and Sagres in the western Algarve.
The goal is to install a system that will replace the smaller systems at Vila do Bispo, Raposeira and Hortas de Tabual and at the Martinhal Submarine Outfall Pumping Station (Sagres) which will be disabled meaning then end to pumping effluent into the sea which someone once thought was a sensible idea.
In fact the Martimhal station was only installed in 2005 at a cost of over €2 million. The sewage was collected, treated and then pumped out to sea, hoping that nobody would notice.
The price of the contract is €2.5 million with an execution time of 450 days from the date award. Pleasingly Isabel Soares, the boss of Águas do Algarve, has correctly put this work out to tender rather than award it to one of her tame supplier companies, as she liked to do when mayor of Silves.
The future treatment station will cope with a population of 14,000 inhabitants in high season, and will be based on activated sludge in a continuous flow system, preceded by pre-treatment by sieving, de-sanding and grease removal - quite right too.
