The regional water supply company Águas do Algarve has issued another press release making it look like the company is announcing new investment for the Algarve’s over-burdened water and sewage infrastructure.
By re-announcing the Águas do Algarve budget from 2016 to 2022 we are meant to marvel at the company’s competence, financial power and dedication to serving its customers.
In fact, the six year budget period hides deliberate slippage for two long-overdue sewage treatment plants; one between Faro and Olhão and the other at Companheira, near Portimão.
The water company added that this year it had invested €7.6 million and that since 2001 to now, its total investment has been €214.5 million, a figure that has not been detailed, nor should it be any surprise that this huge enterprise has achieved a capital expenditure of €15 million a year during this period.
The water company is complicit in polluting the Ria Formosa natural lagoon system with overflowing, partially treated and raw sewage and has made little effort to comply with EC regulations preventing such discharge.
The company, run by Isabel Soares, the corrupt former mayor of Silves council, is adept at making these sorts of announcements to hide a lack of investment where it is sorely needed with the suspicion that those councils that owe Águas do Algarve money are low on the list for capital spending on essential plant.
The Algarve region’s mayors are to meet in November to review a plan by the water company to take over the councils’ end supply business in return, in many cases, for arranging soft loans to pay off the debts owed by councils to Águas do Algarve that have built up over many years.
Many ‘support to local councils’ grants have been used to reduce council indebtedness but the lack of financial controls exercised in the past by Águas do Algarve has left the company with large debts carried forward each year.
One problem is that the councils together account for the majority of shares in the supply company, making debt reduction an interesting topic at each AGM.
Many councils have developed the bad habit of charging their end users extortionate amounts for water supply, Loulé and Albufeira being the main culprits, and failing to pay off in full for the supply of water having resold it at eye-watering margins.
The government left the Algarve untouched when reorganising the regional water boards but the main problem remains, local councils are in charge of the billing. Far from supplying water at a rate designed to cover running costs and investment to repair seriously wasteful and leaking supply networks, the councils use their arm's length water companies to raise money to be used to coevr other council services unrelated to water or sewage.
The proposed sewage treatment plants at Portimão and Olhão/Faro do not take years to built and the allocated budgets are far in excess of those needed to build modern plants. These two treatment installations are years late mainly as the political will to accord with environmental norms and provide a modern waste treatment service is lacking.
Meanwhile the regional water company relies on a seemingly complicit media to push out the sort of nonsense contained in today’s press release in the expectation that locals will be duped into thinking that record levels of investment are being piled into the water and sewage supply infrastructure when evasion, delaying tactics and lethargy are, in fact, at play.
