Notice of the Water Board on the information published in the media about the “peace” agreement between the City Council and Mina, which involves the hiring of certain services and the reduction of the judicialization of the file of the new model of public water management.

The vision of the Water Board is positive as regards the facilitation of the transfer of information, of spaces conditioned to achieve a correct operation that will facilitate new management of the service, through the Public Company (TAIGUA), afterwards of four extensions caused by the lack of Mina’s cooperation.

Also included is the agreement to acquire Mina waterfalls that represent 10% of total consumption.

What is unacceptable is how some media have given the news. To affirm that this agreement implies that ” The City Council of Terrassa maintains to Agbar like water manager in the municipality” or other more subtle ones like “The City council of Terrassa and the company Mine, Aigües de Terrassa have reached an agreement to materialize the change of Ownership in the domestic water supply through a public-private partnership formula, “ implies malicious manipulation of information contrary to journalism with proven information.

We understand that the media collect the vision of the parties, so that citizens can extract their own conclusions, which is inadmissible is “the production” of information that changes the meaning of the facts.

We demand maximum transparency, of any type of agreement that occurs within the City Council of Terrassa that can mortgage future decisions on the new public management, which implies, the bidding of the services through public competition to avoid dealings in favor of the contrary to the general interest. More specifically, in the notice issued by the City Council, a section appears in which he says “The City Council undertakes to analyze the use of goods and services that Mina has, and which may be of interest to EPEL at time to take over service management “.

We are worried that if this Pandora box is opened, we can give reasons for the statements made by the Director General of Mina, when he says that a new stage is being undertaken in which they will now look for the alternative to improve the taste of the ” water, that will put it “within the reach of EPEL” or another project aimed at telematic readings.

Some published information, if true, would be directly a crime. We remain confident in the process and ask the City Council to stay away from manipulations and old forms of public-private “collaboration”, and as necessary, based on transparency, information, competition and the free concurrence It must be that, in spite of this, it also seems to be, in order not to give rise to confusion.

It is very dangerous not to leave linked to the public tender process throughout the secondary market, which is undoubtedly where private companies get the largest margin of profit. We believe that in this new stage we will also have to explore the public-public collaborations, as a more transparent, equitable and social, in the nonprofit management of a human right, such as water.

The Water Board as drivers of remunicipalization want to give content to the concept of public management because it alone does not guarantee good functioning and transparency, but is linked to effective social control with tools such as the Water Observatory of Terrassa, in which we request the involvement of the entities of the city, as a guarantee of success of the process.

WATER TABLE OF TERRASSA. 10/3/2018