A report from the Consumer Protection Association, Deco, today said what most water customers already know, water tariffs in Portugal are "incoherent" and "continue to be guided by inequality."
According to Deco, "from north to south and from the coast to the interior, tariffs continue to be guided by inequality."
The study analyzed about 450 tariffs from 150 municipalities, including water supply, sanitation and solid waste costs in April 2015.
Among the 10 municipalities with the highest bill, six are the Oporto district, with Aveiro, Espinho, Oliveira do Bairro and Vila do Conde not even bothering to apply the low-cost ‘social tariff’ for poor families.
Six years on, the recommendations of the Regulatory Authority for Water and Waste Services are being ignored by many suppliers and Deco has grave concerns for the consumer when the water supply system is consolidated into large regional bodies and tariffs are ‘harmonised.’
"The situation is unclear to the consumer," says the association, which now questions the assurances given by the Government and councils that when the prices are harmonised this is not code for ‘massive hikes.’
Currently those councils in inland regions pay up to three times more for water than those councils on the coast. This will be leveled out under the harmonisation plan so each council will pay roughly the same for its water from the five regional water supply bodies.
The problem for the consumer is that local councils still can charge whatever they want to the end user.
Water charges in the Algarve vary wildly with those for example in Albufeira and Loulé paying many times more than in councils in eastern and western areas.
Águas de Portugal is not interested in what price the consumer pays as long as its five newly constitued distribution companies get paid by the councils.
This spells bad news for consumers who had been led to believe that the councils would be under some regulatory instrument to have their water charges harmonised, i.e. rates fixed for consumers across the country.
The Deco report is part of a bigger picture where the supplier, the local council or its in-house company, can continue to charge whatever it wants, the consumer has no legal protection and the end game is the privatisation of the water supply industry with the consumer paying out for corporate profits as well as for supply.
For the Algarve, DECO said that the supply contracts between end user and water company mostly have no information about the start of the service, the billing and collection, the service suspension arrangements and customer service benchmarks.
This companies that have decided that the consumer is treated poorly are AMBIOLHÃO, EMARP, Fagar, Infralobo, Inframoura, Infraquinta, Município de Albufeira, Município de Alcoutim, Município de Aljezur, Município de Castro Marim, Município de Lagoa, Município de Lagos, Município de Loulé, Município de Monchique, Município de S. Brás de Alportel, Município de Silves, Município de Vila do Bispo, Taviraverde, and Vila Real de Santo Antonio Sociedade de Gestão Urbana.
