The president of the Águas de Portugal Group has resigned by email over a disagreement with the Government over policy.
Afonso Lobato Faria has rejected the new Socialist Government’s plan to reverse consolidation of Portugal’s 19 water companies into 5 operating companies and to suspend plans to sell the business into private hands.
The decision by the president of the Águas de Portugal Group was announced today after he sent an email to the Ministry of the Environment which has confirmed Faria’s exit.
Lobato Faria took over the job in 2011 and has worked to consolidate the business and reduce the mountain of debt owed by its municipal customers which were happy to charge captive householders but not so happy to pay for the water supplied in the first place.
Faria said he was well aware of the economic and financial difficulties of the group and had worked with the Passos Coelho government towards creating a standard m3 rate for the purchase of water. This would have treated council buyers equally but Faria had no control over the mark-up charged to the end user.
His period in office also saw progress in the reduction of debts with councils now owing €40 million less than when he took over. The debt burden of the Águas de Portugal Group in 2012 was €3 billion and has reduced 22% since 2011.
Now that the reversal of the consolidation of the water industry is government policy, few are surprised that Faria has quit, especially after his strident performance in parliament in January when he continued to praise the restructuring process while refusing to comment on the new government’s policy on scrapping this programme.
Faria, a Civil and Environmental Engineer, was tasked with restructuting the industry and has only failed due to a government change of policy.
The plan Faria was following was for the benefit of big business, not the consumer as he was content to allow Águas de Portugal’s municipal customers to continue to operate their water businesses like personal ATMs, sucking their customers dry while abusing their local monopolies and using water profits to prop up other areas of council spending.
In the Algarve, Loulé council through its water company Infralobo has been ripping off and bullying customers in a cynical display of corporate arrogance.
The Águas de Portugal Group had no interest in the end user and hence the Socialist government has no interest in Faria whose plan would further have disadvantaged customers.
