Bloco de Esquerda questioned the Government about Águas de Barcelos, whose majority shareholder, Somague Ambiente, was sold to a company associated with a venture capital fund.
Somague Ambiente was purchased by Plainwater, 100% owned by Azuladitional, which, according to the Competition Authority, “is made up of a group of partners who directly or indirectly participate in the capital and / or ECS management bodies Capital”. In turn, ECS Capital is a venture capital fund management company.
In the question sent to the Minister of the Environment, Bloco de Esquerda criticizes that, “so far, nothing has been revealed by the city council executive”, which is finalizing the purchase of 49% of Águas de Barcelos for around 60 million euros.
According to the newspaper Barcelos Popular, the matter was raised in a chamber meeting by the councilor of the independent movement Barcelos, Terra de Futuro, Domingos Pereira, who expressed surprise that the Chamber was unaware of the change in the capital of the municipality’s water and sanitation concessionaire.
The mayor, Miguel Costa Gomes, according to that weekly, stated that he only learned about the situation, informally, in March and that he has already scheduled a meeting with the shareholders.
To Barcelos Newspaper, the administrator of Águas de Barcelos, Luís Vasconcellos, guarantees that this deal does not alter the operation of the Chamber’s entry into the company’s capital.
The blockers ask the Government “what knowledge does it have about the new shareholder composition of Somague Ambiente and the possible implications for the ongoing business process” [para aquisição de 49% do capital por parte da autarquia].
Deputies José Maria Cardoso, Alexandra Vieira, Maria Manuel Rola and Nelson Peralta also want to know the Government’s assessment of the “concession of water supply and sanitation services in the municipality of Barcelos”.
The Bloco de Esquerda considers that, “in addition to all the opacity of the agreements and negotiations, this concession proved long ago that the model of privatization of water and sanitation services in Barcelos brought harmful consequences to all users, to citizens, to finances local and, inherently, national public ”.
The party also submitted a request to the Chamber of Barcelos, having as its first subscriber the deputy barcelense José Maria Cardoso, since, it is underlined in a statement, the “dramatic plot is not over yet” and the “only interlocutor of the business remains the mr. Mayor, who, so far, has not deigned to answer the questions sent by the BE Municipal Coordinator on May 19 ”.
The water and sanitation service was granted in 2005, for a period of 30 years, by the then president of the Chamber, the social democrat Fernando Reis. The business has always been involved in controversy. Already with the PS in power, Águas de Barcelos demanded the autarchy to “rebalance the company”, a process that, many legal episodes later, ended in the Chamber’s condemnation to pay compensation of 172 million euros.
The President of the Chamber, Miguel Costa Gomes, reached, then, an extra-judicial agreement for the acquisition, by the autarchy, of 49% of the capital, a solution that is now dependent on the visa of the Court of Auditors.
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