Galasa, our bankrupt local water company, has had a whopping 32% rise approved for the Levante, whilst in some towns in the Almanzora the rates will double. It comes after a 16% rise in 2009.
But socialist towns (PSOE) have said they are planning to refuse to allow the increase, and say that this must be passed by each local council, something the provincial council disputes. Given that the bills come directly from Galasa HQ (still powered by gennies as the company can’t afford to pay the electricity bill) I doubt this small act of rebellion will do anything.
The company is publically owned by 25 council plus the provincial council. Led by the provincial council, under the control of the PP party, all PP controlled council voted in favour, along with Turre (IU). All PSOE towns voted against the measure. Why the devil Turre voted in favour is beyond me, it’s only just decided to go into Galasa.
In essence, the company sells water at different rates to different towns. So whilst all the towns in the Levante (Turre, Garrucha, Los Gallardos, etc) have the same water rate, some towns in the Almanzora have lower rates. The new measure approves one single water price for all towns, so some towns will now see their water rates increase by more than 100%.
Galasa is bankrupt, and some weeks ago had electricity cut off to its offices as it can’t pay Endesa the bill. It still hasn’t paid the bill, and now salaries are late.
To add to the confusion, three senior directors in charge of accounts, HR and urban planning are all on the sick, claiming to be “stressed”. So on top of everything else, the company appears to be rudderless.
A new report by the PSOE claims that Galasa loses half of the desalinated water it purchases from the desalination plants, which doesn’t help matters. Of the last 14 ha3 it purchased, it only managed to sell 6, the rest being “lost”.
A mooted 1,9 million euro interest free loan by the provincial council has yet to materialise.
The problem isn’t that water rates are too cheap (although they were in parts of the Almanzora). It’s that this company has to purchase its desalinated water from the third parties – the public companies that own the desalination plants – and then manages to lose more than half of that water on the way.
It’s in a spiral of destruction, and as always it’s muggins the tax payer who has to stump up more cash to cover the arses of the f*g useless politicians who run the place into the ground. Add in a fair amount of corruption – note the recent arrests in the Acuamed case – and well, you see how we got here.