The Yopal Person’s Office urged the Yopal Aqueduct, Sewer and Cleaning company (EAAAY) to reconsider the application of Resolution CRA 887 of 2019 and its update in Resolution CRA 39 of 2024, after a series of sanctions to users for alleged excessive water consumption.
According to the Human and Family Rights Representative, Domingo Conde, 1,410 users have been fined without meeting the necessary technical requirements to apply these regulations.
The Resolution authorizes water service providers to apply sanctions in times of officially identified water scarcity.
However, for its application, a regional study is required to confirm that rainfall affects the flows of supply sources. In Yopal, the company would not have added the flows from its underground and surface sources to justify the measure.
The lack of compliance with adequate procedures led the Ombudsman to question the validity of the sanctions imposed, especially because the resolution stipulates that shortage conditions must be confirmed by authorities such as IDEAM or Corporinoquia. According to the company’s response, Corporinoquia did not provide the required flow measurement, which would technically prevent the application of the standard.
In addition, the Ombudsman questioned the changes in billing, since the billing cycle was changed, which could alter the figures in consumption footage and the number of sanctioned users. In some cases, 35 days were billed instead of the regulatory 30, which could have artificially increased the volume of consumption recorded and, therefore, the fines applied.
The Municipal Office appealed to the water company to review these cases and encouraged affected users to file formal complaints. A call has been made to the Superintendency of Public Services and the Attorney General’s Office to investigate whether the measures applied in Yopal were legal and appropriate, given that the fines collected are not allocated to local projects but to a national environmental fund.
In response, the aqueduct company stated in an almost haughty manner that “The interpretation made by the Yopal Municipal Office lacks a correct and objective reading of the normative reality, to which we are obliged as providers of the aqueduct service, generating misinformation and confusion among users.”
The EAAAY ensures that it fulfilled its role as aqueduct service provider and respected the existing regulatory and regulatory framework. Implemented the collection of the disincentive to excessive consumption of drinking water contemplated in resolution CRA 877 of 2019, after the declaration of risk due to shortages at the national level made by IDEAM on January 25, 2024.
They also stated that the measure applies only to residential users who exceed 32 cubic meters of billed consumption and seeks to promote the adoption of prevention actions and responsible consumption of water inside homes.
The truth is that it is the user, as always, who is the main affected, since the service continues to be a disaster and the bills are increasingly expensive.
