The intermunicipal council of the Community of Municipalities of the Aveiro Region has issued a public protest note, seeking an urgent meeting with the Minister of Environment and Energy and the president of Águas de Portugal, according to a statement.
The council claims that the untenable situation necessitates the reiteration of the long-communicated official decision to withdraw from Águas do Centro Litoral.
At issue is the publication of legal provisions that allow Águas do Centro Litoral an exceptional regime for tariff updates, which surprised local municipalities, prompting demands for an immediate change.
The statement refers to it as “a blank check handed over to Águas do Centro Litoral, supposedly necessary for the company’s stability, without any prior control by the regulator and the grantor.”
“We expected, given the social implications of the matter at hand, that the decision regarding tariff and revenue updates would be in line with those made in previous years,” explains the intermunicipal council.
For the municipalities of the Aveiro Region, the decree-law granting exceptions to Águas do Centro Litoral regarding tariff policy “confirms erratic management choices.”
According to CIRA’s calculations, this means “this year, beyond the expected updates, an additional two million euros will be borne by users in the Aveiro Region.”
The municipalities of the Aveiro Region established a partnership with the government 15 years ago to create the company Águas da Região de Aveiro, responsible for supplying water and collecting wastewater for about 350,000 people.
“It has been recognized unanimously by shareholders as the top priority to contain tariff growth, considering the effort made by the served population to access services,” the statement highlights.
“The permanent and exponential increase in the cost of upstream services makes it completely impossible to provide end customers with quality service at socially acceptable prices,” concludes the intermunicipal council of the Aveiro Region.
The Intermunicipal Community of the Aveiro Region was formally created in October 2008 and includes the municipalities of Aveiro, Sever do Vouga, Ovar, Vagos, Estarreja, Águeda, Oliveira do Bairro, Ílhavo, Murtosa, Anadia, and Albergaria-a-Velha, corresponding to a territory of about 370,000 inhabitants.
