A few days ago, the president of OSE, Raúl Montero, and the general director, Arturo Castagnino, attended the Departmental Board of San José in order to present about the “Neptuno Project”, in the Arazatí spa, which consists of the construction of a water treatment plant, a new pumping station and an 80 kilometer pipeline.
They referred to the challenges and risks currently represented by having a single source of drinking water supply (Aguas Corrientes) for the metropolitan area, and the solutions that the completion of the work would generate. The future work is a private initiative presented by a consortium of five construction companies.
However, the Federation of OSE Officials (FFOSE) expressed its rejection of the “marketization, privatization and unsustainable management of natural resources and water in particular, because these types of actions hinder access to public goods and services to the great majorities for the benefit of powerful companies, which is why it moves further and further away from a perspective of rights for the satisfaction of the needs of the people”.
Privatization
Through a statement, FFOSE expressed its rejection of the “Neptune Project”, since it is a clear attempt to privatize the production of drinking water.
“We do not question the need to increase the drinking water available to the metropolitan area; but we reject that it be through a business so that a private company profits at the expense of state money, with terms of decades, whose costs will be transferred to the rate, and therefore, to the population, ”warned the union of the autonomous entity.
The union also stated that the project implies a “cession to private of the management of genuine resources of the public body, since as a possible form of financing it is managed that the consortium of private companies build and operate the new plant for a period of 30 years. , where OSE agrees to buy the water, ensuring a minimum annual canon for its availability, regardless of the real demand for drinking water.
Violation of the Constitution
FFOSE highlights its political and economic position and denounces the “violation of article 47 of the Constitution”, as well as technical and environmental elements.
“On the one hand, the quality of the water in the area where the intake is located (Arazati spa, San José) is highly variable, especially due to the entry of seawater when the tide favors it. Although they propose a reservoir of good quality water for when this happens, that would work if the episodes of high salinity occurred on isolated days. Reality says that there are periods when you can spend more than a month with water in these conditions. The purification of this type of water makes the process much more expensive”, considers the union.
They assure that what is alarming is that the technical areas of OSE and the Ministry of the Environment have not been consulted, but instead have had an “express” approval by the authorities of each agency; which shows a worrying haste for this project.”
Deterioration and dismantling
They indicate that OSE is also witnessing a “progressive deterioration and dismantling” as a public body. Due to the outsourcing of its main services, which are progressively being left in the hands of personnel not properly trained to fulfill their specific roles.
In this framework of “emptying the entity’s human resources, old roles and work responsibilities have ceased to be designated.”
FFOSE denounces that worsening this situation, “in OSE it has been four years since external calls have been made, having already lost 800 genuine jobs”.
“All these cuts are affecting the quality of services, which in turn is then used as an argument to justify their privatization.”
For this reason, the union demands genuine investments from OSE and the State in the infrastructure for drinking water and sanitation.
