Engagés pour l'eau et l'assainissement urbains

The water and the cacique.

After blowing to pieces the streets, the security, the legislation, the education, the healthcare system and the environment, the insatiable “sponges” within the political class of Palmira are now looking at the water industry and are well and truly on the case. Their sights are set on water supply and they are not taking their eyes off the target.

Fifteen years ago Palmira delegated the water management of the town to Lysa, a French company. Acuaviva was created, a joint venture company, which all shares have been distributed as follows: 49% for Lysa, 41% to the municipality and 10% for others (Manuelita, Oriente and so forth).

For fifteen years, Acuaviva has run like clockwork. It has offered the best quality drinking water in Colombia (with zero cases of diarrhoeal diseases), 100% distribution network coverage, an efficient handling of rainwater and wastewater (there has not been a single flood).  According to the Superintendence of Public Services, it was considered to be the third best water supply and sewerage utility in the country.

Acuaviva reduced its losses due to leaks and illegal connections by 90%. Indeed, while in 1997 the water distribution delivered 1.050 liters of treated water per second, thanks to Acuaviva’s actions, it now requires only 780 liters per second to supply the whole population.

However, Acuaviva had one important drawback: the clockwork run too well, something unforgivable in Colombia where Emcali-like[1], firms are needed, not clocks.

And if that’s not enough, Acuaviva has never paid any “fees”, financed any campaigns or been a stronghold for any overlord.  And the cacique’s patience, as everyone knows, has its limit.  “Let’s show them that this is not France” they said.

According to credible sources, the local chief -who is now behind bars because of an alleged money-laundering case- demanded the French to pay 15% of the contracts concluded by the company (that is to say, a “fee” of 36 billion of Colombian peso[2] per year) in order to renew the concession, which would terminate in December of 2012. However, the French disagreed. They will leave in June and Acuaviva will become another Emcali-like company.

The Mayor Rítter López (employed at the third level of the cacique) argues that the French are taking away profits that could have stayed in Palmira. We could trust him, if there wasn’t for the fact that the Municipal Department to immediately thereafter design tender specifications excluding Colombian operators for the management of the water supply system. The experts explain that these specifications are tailor-made for Aguas de Barcelona, a company that –I presume- is generous with “fees”.

Beforehand, López had commissioned the Development & Investment Group to study the case, a so-called Bogotanian company, which star was Eva María Uribe[3]. The “guru” received 800 millions of Colombian peso[4] to issue that brilliant statement worthy of this consulting company: “Acuaviva may be replaced by a public or private company or even a joint venture”. In other words, the game can be lost, won or tied. If she says so!

The best is yet to come: in order to protect the water network, the French offered to give away its shares in Acuaviva to the dwellers (not to the municipality) represented by the directors of the National University, the Chamber of Commerce, Comfandi, the bishop and the Rotarians. Guess what they replied? “No thanks” since its corporate purpose doesn’t involve water management.

Well, that’s what they said in public. In private, they recognized that they did not want to get into trouble with the cacique.

That our Politics behave like rats is no news but the fact that the city’s most influential people act in such a cowardly and accommodating way produces a thoroughly demoralizing effect.