The Catalan Water Agency (ACA) has its accounts very well healthy. This body of the Generalitat has accumulated a remaining treasury of 540.76 million euros at the end of 2022. The sum draws attention taking into account the lack of infrastructure and the insufficient pace of investments in the water cycle in Catalonia. in recent times (supply infrastructure, sanitation…). The Government says that “almost all these amounts are committed”
The treasury surplus has been increasing thanks to contributions from the water fee paid by domestic users and industries. The ACA has received between 408.3 million euros (in 2013) and 466.35 million euros (2020) through the fee, while ordinary exploitation and sanitation activities and other actions total between 157 million euros (in 2013). ) and 193.2 (in 2019). 96% of the ACA’s income comes from royalties.
The investment rate is much lower than the income obtained from the water fee that users pay in the bill.
The report itself of the preliminary draft budget of the ACA for 2024 recognizes this situation. He admits that until 2019 this company “had to face a significant volume of debt, so non-financial provisions had to be considerably lower than current income.”
However, once the entire debt was settled during 2019, “as of 2020, for various reasons, the volume of investments has not reached the level that income allowed, which has meant that between 2020 and 2022 , year after year, the remaining treasury has been increasing.” Thus, since 2019 the debt has been closed and, despite that, the administrative machinery continues to be reluctant when it comes to undertaking the necessary investments. At the end of 2022, these accumulated resources were in the hands of half a dozen banking entities and 250 million are in short-term deposit.
In the treasury, as of 2022, there was a total of 212,487,486 euros from the so-called cash pooling (common or shared cash) of the Generalitat, resources that have been made available to the Generalitat to respond to the financing needs that has considered appropriate. That box belongs to the ACA in any case.
Sources from the Department of Climate Action explained that “almost all of the remaining treasury is affected,” which means that “it is not even free to dispose of,” but rather “it is committed to a specific investment or expense item.” The reality is that, according to the report of the 2024 preliminary project, of the 540.76 million remaining, 356.75 million have “application”, that is, they have some degree of commitment or allocation, and 184.01 million do not have no application. However, among those items that appear as committed in 2023 there is one of 82.7 million euros that corresponds to an expense charged to the 2022 budget that has not been executed, as well as a loan to the ATL company (which must be amortized after of one year) worth 130.53 million, which would increase the sum of money not effectively used as investment.
The Department of Climate Action argues that the law does not allow the ACA to commit to any investment if it does not have the budget reserved for its liquidation. “You can’t get into debt,” they said. All investments, lines of subsidies, agreements and others “must have their item reserved as a remainder until they are liquidated.” Many of these agreements are also multi-year. President Pere Aragonès declared yesterday that this sum will be used to pay for the works that are being tendered to address the drought. “All works planned in the coming years must have the resources ready to be paid for,” he stated.
But there are voices very critical of the situation created. “This treasury surplus is generated because there are some investments that are budgeted, but are not being executed, so they remain pending for subsequent years,” indicate people who have analyzed these accounts. “It is incredible that with all the investment capacity available we are reaching this critical situation with the drought,” say sources familiar with these accounts.
