Private auditor denounces irregularities in the collection of water from large companies

Angelica Enciso L.

Newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, September 13, 2022, p. 13

Of 168,000 concessions granted to the industrial and commercial sectors in the country by the National Water Commission (Conagua), only 30,000 have meters installed and around 20,000 are altered to evade the actual charge for liquid consumption, Manuel García said. Soto, General Director of Efficiency and Regularization of Water Operating Organizations (EroAgua).

He specified that it is industrial and commercial plants that incur in these irregularities and annually cause property damage of more than 30 billion pesos. He exemplified that the Expopark industrial park, in Toluca, with 57 installed companies, has not paid a single peso in 27 years of operations.

He said that the companies General Motors, Hules and Vandas Gates, Agua Bonafont, Alpura, Gamesa, Pepsico, Sabritas and Gatorade, among others, have also not paid water operators, in addition to hotel chains such as Opus Grand, which operates Fiesta Inn.

He specified that this information is the result of audits and pointed out that municipal and state governments have recently requested the services of EroAgua to audit companies based in the municipalities of Toluca, Cuautitlán and Los Cabos, Tijuana, and Hermosillo.

In these locations, despite the anomalies detected and reported to the water utilities, suspiciously the supply of the liquid is not closedas it happens with any citizen who stops paying the water bill.

All this It suggests that there is corruption or collusion of administrative officials of the agencies with the companies, he added. These large companies evade the payment of hydraulic services and cause severe damage to the economy of the water utilities and, therefore, to the municipal, state and citizen treasury, he said at a press conference.

I consider that the most vulnerable classes are those that suffer the ravages caused by large water-consuming companies that do not pay what is correct or do not pay at all, and this is a generalized practice at the national level.

A few weeks ago, García Soto revealed that in audits carried out in Sonora, one hundred opinions of companies were issued, of which there are only 10 regularized. Given this, the operating agency cut off the service to Coca-Cola, one of the companies that failed to comply with its payments for the drinking water service.

Of 2 thousand concessions for the use of water that existed in 1992, to date Conagua has granted 514 thousand concessions, overconcessioned 108 basins and 115 aquifers, with priority given to large companiesaccording to the national coordinator Water for all.