Within the framework of the Water Connection Forum, the Swiss Embassy in Colombia – Economic Cooperation and Development (SECO) and the Inter-American Development Bank – IDB exalted the commitment of Aguas y Aguas de Pereira, during the development of the Cooperation Program for the Improvement of Water and Sanitation Providers – COMPASS – Colombia and the results of their Aquarating qualification. The Company is pleased to receive this recognition from all Pereirans, which strengthens it as a benchmark in the sector and reflects its constant interest in improving internal processes, and thus, continue offering its users an excellent quality service,” Leandro Jaramillo said in this regard. Rivera, Manager of the entity.
He indicated in the same sense that “Here is basically recognizing that Aguas y Aguas is among the large providers, it was the Company that grew the most in terms of indicators, it is worth recognizing the commitment of the entire team that was working with us to be able to carry out the development of this program, so it is to thank them and ratify that this indicator delivered by this agency leaves us calm and we can guarantee that Aguas y Aguas is a sustainable Company and that it is and will continue to belong to the Pereiranos.”
For his part, Sergio Campos, Head of the Water and Sanitation Division of the IDB, highlighted the commitment of Aguas y Aguas by reaffirming that “It was one of the Companies that stood out, received an award, they did the Aquarating evaluation, a tool that evaluates the Company’s performance based on practices, indicators and other types of tools. Pereira took Aquarating twice, 3 years ago, the first time, and now the second time, they have been one of the Companies that has achieved the most efficiency, they have increased their performance level by more than 22%, so congratulations.”
COMPASS, since its inception in 2017, has set as its main objective to support water and sewage service providers in the urban area, to improve their business performance in aspects identified as weak at the sector level, achieving, upon completion of this first phase, a significant improvement in these areas. Additionally, this program promoted the Aquarating measurement, based on an international standard, focused on the comprehensive evaluation of companies from quantitative aspects to performance and qualitative aspects related to the processes, practices and technologies used in the main management cycles, applicable to any type and size of company worldwide and with mechanisms to assess the reliability of the information provided by companies, thus validating its consistency and veracity.
Regarding Aquarating, Campos expressed that “It is a tool that allows us to see the Company in 13 areas, ranging from Service Quality, Financial Management, Corporate Governance, Environmental Quality, Climate Financing, Gender, Business Continuity, Unaccounted for Water and so on. The good thing about it is that, once you have the Baseline, you can not only know where you are, but also compare yourself with 34 other companies internationally that have applied Aquarating.”
The IDB representatives also emphasized that “Improvement is not easy because companies are complex, they have commercial management, technical management, drinking water, sewage, wastewater treatment, they have customer service, So achieving an improvement like the one Aguas de Pereira achieved is really important and is a merit of the entire Company, of the Management, of the Mayor, of the workers in particular, also of the users, because there is a part of the evaluation where evaluates the Company.”
DATA OF INTEREST
During the last 6 years, the Compass Program managed to directly impact 12 companies in the drinking water sector, including Aguas y Aguas de Pereira, with whom the so-called Sectoral Action was formed, whose purpose is to work jointly on the comprehensive strengthening and continuous improvement of the providers.
