The PSOE of Santa Cruz spoke clearly yesterday about the announcement by the government team of the capital city council to raise the water tariff with almost immediate effect, alleging that it had not been updated for more than ten years, as well as that Emmasa had the right since that was stated in the contract that awarded her water management in Santa Cruz.
Precisely the latter is what the PSOE refutes that, as former mayor Patricia Hernández defended yesterday, “this has already been sentenced by the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) in 2018, where it tells Emmasa that she cannot raise the rate in based on the CPI alleging economic imbalance, a sentence to which one from this year is added, in which, again, a court denied the increase in rates and fees, in a second attempt to raise the receipt ”. Hernández assured that “we are going to stop this and of course we will go to court if they end up approving the rise in water.”
The former mayor insisted that Emmasa has only entered a year in losses in recent years, “and in 2021 it had benefits, so the economic imbalance does not hold.”
The also socialist deputy assured that in the press conference of the mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, “many lies were told”, to then assert that “what they want is for the public to pay the money that Sacyr looted from Emmasa, more than 38 million, which they say they are going to return on the one hand, and that they are going to recover on the other with the income from the increase in the rate at a rate of more than two million a year”.
And it is that Hernández maintains, based on the proposed report that goes this Monday to the information commission of the Plenary next Friday, and that he showed at the press conference, a linear increase of 7.9% is collected for all the concepts of the invoice. “It’s a lie that he receives 1.34 euros, that’s what only one of the concepts goes up, but the sewage rate, the purification rate, the meter rate, also goes up by that amount.” In the end, the average increase, applying that 7.9% to the total of an average bill, shows an increase of more than four euros.
“We are talking about the fact that Emmasa will receive, if this increase is approved, two million between now and December, to, in January, update again to the CPI for 2022, which is estimated to be 16%, which is another two million . In just six months, Emmasa will earn four million more,” said Hernández.
The councilor insisted that “we are not going to consent to it. If the mayor wants to act as Sacyr’s lawyer, we are going to defend the criteria of the City Council’s legal service, which in a report warns that the rate cannot be raised”. A report that warns that it does not comply with current legislation, and that the City Council refutes in the proposed report.
As for the investment plan, “it is the seventh that they have presented to us and they do not even bother to change the works, some investments that Sacyr has to make yes or yes Sacyr, they do not depend on anything, that is why the contract was awarded in its moment, and they have done nothing, and now they tell us that they give him a term until the end of the concession, when they have not complied with anything”.
Consistory
The City Council pointed out yesterday that Emmasa’s forecast is that this year it will enter into losses, hence the need to raise rates to recover the economic balance of the company, something to which the City Council is obliged by law. Meanwhile, the Councilor for Public Services, Carlos Tarife, did not want to refute the arguments of the PSOE, indicating that he will do so in plenary, but he did want to advance that, “the Minister of Waters of the Cabildo, a socialist, has called me to congratulate me for the agreement and to tell me that the Cabildo will vote in favor of the rate increase when it goes to the Price Commission of the Government of the Canary Islands, a body in which the Cabildo is represented”. “If the PSOE wants to stay out of this agreement, they will be the ones to explain it,” he concluded.
