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Euegnio Cabezas
Axarquía
Wednesday, 20 November 2024, 11:14
The Mancomunidad association of town halls in the Axarquía, the area to the east of Malaga province, voted on Tuesday 19 November to increase water bills paid by 14 of the 31 municipalities in the area applicable from 2025.
The municipalities affected are Almáchar, Benamargosa, Benamocarra, El Borge, Comares, Cútar, Iznate, Macharaviaya, Moclinejo, Rincón de la Victoria, Vélez-Málaga, Totalán, Algarrobo and Torrox, which together have a population of around 180,000 registered inhabitants and some 230,000 in the summer season. In the case of an increase of around 27% for wastewater treatment, the municipalities affected are Vélez-Málaga, Benamocarra, Rincón de la Victoria, Torrox and Algarrobo.
The president of the Mancomunidad and the public water company Axaragua, Jorge Martín, has defended the need for these increases, as the tariff for high supply has not been revised since 2008 and the purification tariff since 2018, so “either it is approved or the company goes out of business,” he said. The debt carried by Axaragua is around 9.1 million euros, according to technical documentation to which SUR has had access.
These increases in water rates, from 0.3274 to 0.4429 euros per cubic metre in the case of water supply and from 0.4702 to 0.5977 in the case of sewerage, which are expected to come into effect on 1 January 2025, do not mean that residents will immediately pay these increases in their water and sewerage bills, as it will now be up to each of the affected town halls to decide whether or not to pass them on to end users. However, the technical reports state that, for an average consumption of ten cubic metres per month per household, the increase will be 1.44 euros per month.
Martín argued that the increase is to compensate for increases in the costs of electricity, salaries and materials used for the purification of water from the La Viñuela reservoir and for the treatment of wastewater in the four waste water treatment plants. He also stressed that the rise in costs and, therefore, Axaragua's debt, has been “brutal” in the last three years, following the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. “We are obliged to bring it forward because the viability of the public company and the continuation of a good service depends on these tariff revisions,” said Martín.
Opposition PSOE spokesperson at the Mancomunidad and the mayor of Almáchar, Antonio Yuste, whose party opposed the increase, said, “Once again the residents are forced to face an increase in basic services without the consensus or transparency that this decision requires.” He went on to say, “It is a proposal decided unilaterally, without consultation with the mayors of the municipalities affected and without the creation of a space for reflection and analysis that would allow all those involved to assess the consequences of this increase with rigour and transparency.”
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