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The mayor of Valença said on Thursday that this year a contract of 1.2 million euros must begin, already called for public tender, to improve the basic sanitation that serves Cerdal, the largest parish in the municipality.
“We are confident that the contract will start at the end of this year. This alone will not happen if the public tender, in progress, closes the desert. It has happened in some procedures. If there are no interested parties in this contest, there is no alternative but to raise the price of the work and launch a new contest. In this scenario, the intervention can only begin next year ”, Manuel Lopes, Social Democratic mayor, told Lusa today.
The mayor explained that this investment is the result of the municipality’s adhesion to the company that manages the low water and sanitation networks Águas do Alto Minho (AdAM).
According to the mayor, the work now launched for public tender aims to treat basic sanitation in the parish of Cerdal, the largest in the municipality, and will benefit, “in the immediate term, between 600 and 800 inhabitants.”
At stake is a public tender, published in Diário da República, for a base value of 1.125 million euros.
Manuel Lopes said that it is the second investment made by AdAM, the first of which, already concluded, was around 200 thousand euros invested in improving the water supply network to the parishes of Cerdal, Silva, São Julião, Friestas and Gandra.
“In the next three years, the municipality will continue to be the target of an investment of around four million euros,” he added.
AdAM is 51% owned by AdP and 49% by the municipalities of Arcos de Valdevez (PSD), Caminha (PS), Paredes de Coura (PS), Ponte de Lima (CDS-PP), Valença (PSD), Viana do Castelo (PS) and Vila Nova de Cerveira (independent movement PenCe – Pensar Cerveira), which make up the Alto Minho Intermunicipal Community (CIM).
Three municipalities in the district, Ponte da Barca (PSD), Monção (PSD) and Melgaço (PS), failed to establish such an association.
The new company began operating in January, “sized to supply more than nine million cubic meters of drinking water per year, and to collect and treat more than six million cubic meters of wastewater per year, around 70 thousand customers” .
In April, the company suspended billing after billing errors were detected affecting 15,000 consumers.
In August it was made public and it apologized for the “inaccuracy” detected in a “batch of consumption readings for May”, which affected the bills of 495 clients in six municipalities in the region.
The constitution has been challenged by various parties and by the population of some municipalities, who complain about the “exponential” increase in rates and the malfunction of services and demand the return of water and sanitation management to the municipalities of the region.
Questioned by Lusa, Manuel Lopes assured that the company “is already working better.”
“Nothing like the first months in which big billing errors were detected. At the time it was dramatic. The errors have already been corrected and the invoices are arriving much more assertive, and there are no more complaints that existed before. There is always one or the other because they always existed, even when the service belonged to the municipality, because making mistakes is human, “he said.
Regarding the services provided by the company, Manuel Lopes said that he noticed “a substantial improvement.”
“Water losses have been drastically reduced in terms of breaks and at this moment we can say that we are doing well,” he said.
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