The Court of Auditors (TdC) has filed a complaint that the company Agbar, in charge of managing water in Barcelona, ??made last year against the agreements signed between the Barcelona City Council, then led by Ada Colau, and different social entities such as the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages or the Alliance against Energy Poverty (APE).
The court, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, has decided to close the case because the water company did not prove that the subsidies were not duly accredited or that they caused real damage to the municipal coffers. Furthermore, some of the aid provided had been carried out during the mandate of the previous mayor, Xavier Trias, and, therefore, only represented an extension carried out by Colau’s team. Altogether, the reported subsidies amounted to 2.3 million euros.
Agbar’s complaint was registered the day after the municipal elections were held last May, which concluded with the departure of Colau and the arrival of the socialist Jaume Collboni. However, the water company decided to move forward with the case until February 15, when the company finally gave up continuing the lawsuit.
On the other hand, the case of the subsidies that Colau granted to social entities is also being investigated in a Barcelona court following a complaint made by the Association for Transparency and Democratic Quality organization. However, the case is pending a decision on whether it will be archived, as requested by the former mayor’s defense.
Now, this is not the first time that Agbar has filed a complaint against the Barcelona en Comú party, and in 2018 he already filed a complaint for insults against councilor Eloi Badia and other officials from the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB). However, this case was archived, as was the complaint filed by the water company against Barcelona City Council in June 2021.
In this case, Agbar denounced that the commissioned technical and legal studies carried out in 2017 for the transition towards public water management in the city represented a “harm” to the public coffers, since the jurisdiction over the service is not municipal, but of the AMB.
Finally, the TdC concluded that the City Council had “full legitimacy” to propose a direct water management regime “at the Barcelona municipal level.” Furthermore, he added that none of the studies commissioned by the council represented an “accounting or budgetary violation” on the part of Colau. The reports endorsed by the Court of Auditors had a total cost of almost 900,000 euros.
Through social networks, the Barcelona en Comú party has criticized that Agbar “uses the money we all pay to take us to court for defending public water management.” Likewise, the commons assure that they already have 18 legal cases filed against Colau.
