The Portuguese government has “no intention” of privatising the water sector, it said last week.
According to a statement issued by the Environment Ministry, which oversees the state-run Águas de Portugal (AdP), it “does not discuss, admit to or is considering privatising the water sector”.
Instead, the statement explained, “the strategy is to promote the corporate restructuring of the water sector and to provide greater proportionate social and territorial cohesion, environmental quality and financial-economic sustainability by combining multi-municipal systems (thus joining together various councils)”.
The objective, maintained the statement, is to have in place just four multi-municipal systems (water and wastewater) instead of the 19 currently operating under the AdP umbrella.
These are most likely to serve the North, Centre, Lisbon and Vale do Tejo, and Algarve water regions, a proposal already discussed by AdP president Afonso Lobato de Faria to Expresso newspaper in April 2012.
Only after the completion of the restructuring process can the Government consider granting operating concessions to one or more multi-municipal systems, the statement elaborated and added that “concessions are neither an inevitability nor a priority”.
In this latest move, the Government reiterated that there are no plans to privatise Águas da Portugal despite mulling over the idea in 2011 of offering private companies concessions to operate multi-municipal systems. At the time potential interest was expressed by French companies Veolia and Degremont, and Spanish concern Aqualia.
According to industry sources contacted by Expresso, these are the only three multinationals with enough financial clout to purchase outright AdP. In 2011, Adp was valued at €1 billion.
The statement also underlined the Government’s intention not to include the water sector in a proposed bill authorising the Executive to legislate on the safeguarding of strategic assets, arguing that Águas da Portugal already enjoys adequate protection.
