The Catalan Water Agency (ACA) has its accounts very well maintained. This body of the Generalitat has a remaining treasury of 540.76 million euros, according to the report of the preliminary draft of the budgets for 2024. The sum attracts attention, taking into account the lack of infrastructure and insufficient pace of investments in the water cycle in Catalonia in recent times (supply infrastructure, sanitation…).
The treasury surplus has been growing thanks to the contributions of the water fee paid by domestic and industrial users. The ACA received by the canon between 408.3 million euros (in 2013) and 466.35 million (2020), while the ordinary activities of exploitation and sanitation and other actions add up to between 157 million euros (in 2013) and 193.2 (in 2019). 96% of the ACA’s income comes from the fee.
The investment rate is much lower than the income obtained from the water fee that users pay on receipt.
The report of the 2024 ACA draft budget itself recognizes this situation. He admits that until 2019, this company “had to deal with a significant volume of debt, so non-financial endowments had to be considerably lower than current income”.
Nevertheless, once the totality of the debt was concluded during the year 2019, “from 2020, for various reasons, the volume of investments has not reached the level that the income allowed, which has meant that between in 2020 and 2022, year after year, the treasury balance has been increasing”. Since 2019 the debt has been closed and, despite this, the administrative machinery continues to be remiss when it comes to undertaking the necessary investments. At the end of 2022, all the accumulated resources were in the hands of half a dozen banking entities and 250 million are in a short-term deposit.
In the treasury, in 2022, a total of 212,487,486 euros stood out from the so-called cash pooling (common or shared fund) of the Generalitat, resources that have been made available to the Generalitat to respond to the financing needs that has considered appropriate. This 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”, but “it is committed to a specific item of investment or expenditure “.
The reality is that, according to the 2024 draft report, of the remaining 540.76 million, 356.75 million have “application”, that is, they have some degree of commitment or allocation, and 184.01 million they have no application. However, among the items listed as committed, in 2023 there is one of 82.7 million euros which corresponds to an expenditure charged to the 2022 budget not executed, as well as a loan to the company ATL ( which must be amortized after one year) worth 130.53 million, which would increase the amount of money not effectively used as an investment.
The Department of Climate Action asserts that the law does not allow the ACA to commit to any investment if it does not have the budget set aside for its liquidation. “You can’t go into debt”, they said. All investments, lines of subsidies, agreements and others “must have the item reserved as a remainder until they are liquidated”. Many of these agreements, moreover, are multi-year. President Pere Aragonès declared yesterday that this sum will be used to pay for the works that are being tendered to deal with the drought. “All the works planned in the coming years must have the resources prepared to be able to pay,” he said.
But there are very critical voices with the situation created. “This cash surplus is generated because there are investments that are budgeted, but are not being executed, therefore, they are pending for subsequent years”, indicate people who have analyzed these accounts. “It is incredible that with all the investment capacity that was available we are reaching this critical situation with the drought”, say sources familiar with these accounts.
