Alenquer City Council will increase water bills by at least 6% for most consumers this year, as part of the agreement approved today to rebalance the private water and sanitation concession.
In the first bracket, in which the majority of consumers are found, a family will pay 24.71 euros for the consumption of five cubic meters of water, compared to 23.19 euros until now, or 1.52 euros more per month, according to calculations made by the Lusa agency comparing the current tariff and the new tariff, to which the Lusa agency had access.
In the second bracket, another family with double the consumption will pay 37.23 euros per month, compared to 34.86 euros, or 2.37 euros more.
“It’s an increase indexed to inflation, it’s not very high,” the mayor, Pedro Folgado, explained to Lusa.
The updating of water and sanitation tariffs for 2024 is provided for in the economic and financial rebalancing agreement for the private concession of water distribution and wastewater drainage services, which was handed over to Águas de Alenquer for 30 years until 2033.
The concession’s financial rebalancing agreement, which received a favorable opinion from the Water and Sanitation Services Regulatory Authority, was approved by the Socialist majority, with the PSD and CDU against, at today’s extraordinary public meeting.
Nuno Miguel Henriques (PSD) argued that the agreement “is harmful to future generations”, a similar position was taken by Ernesto Ferreira (CDU), who said that “it’s a ruinous contract” and that the negotiations “shouldn’t be closed in this way”.
Several citizens attended the extraordinary meeting, which was closed to the public, holding up placards to show their discontent and to remind people that the municipality had committed itself in the past to returning two million euros (ME) to consumers.
Since 2016, Águas de Alenquer has been asking for a financial rebalancing of the concession, which implies an increase in tariffs, due to delays in the start-up of the infrastructures of the high-level sanitation network, excess costs with limestone in the pipes and lower consumption than contracted.
The municipality has been evaluating the request, opposing the decision to further increase the price of water to end consumers and considering ending the concession to private individuals in 2033, when the concession ends, as the Alenquer Agua Justa Movement has been calling for since 2019.
In June 2022, the Alenquer Municipal Assembly recommended that the council maintain the water and sanitation concession until 2033, trying until then to reach an agreement to rebalance the concession without increasing tariffs.
The municipal deputies also recommended that the municipality in the Lisbon district take the two services public again in 2034 and proceed with an investment plan for the water supply and sanitation network by then.
The agreement now reached, to which Lusa has had access, concerns the updating of tariffs, based on the delay in the infrastructures of the high-level sanitation network and the integration of new infrastructures into the concession, with the parties not having reached an agreement on limestone and flow detour.
As for the infrastructure delays, the agreement provides for the concessionaire to be compensated almost 500,000 euros by the municipality.
“This figure is better than [paying] 8 ME” [as requested by the concessionaire], said Pedro Folgado, adding that it was the “possible agreement” after eight years of negotiations to rebalance the concession.
At the public meeting, the municipality’s technical consultants explained that ending the concession before 2033 would be “damaging for the council and would force very large increases in fares”.
