La Calera demands accounts from Colón Punilla S.A.: Millionaire debt and divestment in the service
The Municipality of La Calera tightened its position against Colón Punilla Agua y Saneamiento S.A. after exhausting all instances of prior administrative dialogue.
The municipality presented a technical report that reveals a balance in favor of overpayments of almost 900 million that cover the total of what the company claims.
Nuevo
Agregar La Derecha Diario en
Compartir:
The Municipality of La Calera tightened its position vis-a-vis the borrower after exhausting all instances of prior administrative dialogue. The local government confirmed that the company and the province were notified of a balance in favor of 880 million pesos. The conflict exposes the need for an urgent agreement on the modality of returning these public resources that belong to the people of
Cali.
Historically, the Provincial Government supplied wholesale water to the city of La Calera without receiving any payment. However, after losing the elections in 2023, the outgoing Peronist mayor Facundo Rufeil committed the city to paying the updated amount of 200 million per month, almost 10% of the municipal budget,
for water and sanitation.
This maneuver to definance his successor caused the administration of the current mayor Fernando Rambaldi to pay 200 million to the province for more than a year. However, for months the municipality's technical teams claimed that the city received less water than it paid monthly
. The situation of the company Colón Punilla S.A. is alarming when analyzing its accumulated liabilities with other provincial public service providers.
Operational divestment and tax debts
In November 2024, the province precariously handed over the concession of the service to the company Colón Punilla and a month later the municipality succeeded in court to install a macro-meter at the exit of the plant. With the installation of the macrometer, the suspicions were confirmed: the city paid almost 900 million more for a year, generating a large
balance in favor.
However, Colón Punilla S.A. would ignore the balance in favor of La Calera, arguing that it is a favorable balance generated with the province and not with the company. This is why the current administration would be stopping the payment of 3 months for wholesale water as a safeguard for the money that belongs to the city
.
This would not be more than an administrative issue if it weren't for the company decided to leave the city of La Calera without water three weeks ago. Not only was the balance in favor of the city unknown, but Colón Punilla S.A. decided to reduce water flow to levels that made it impossible to provide for most of the city's neighborhoods without payment deadlines.
The municipality had been handling the payments within the 90 business days that the service was cut off, but just after 50 business days the company decided to cut off the city's water to force the municipality to pay, without considering that for a year the municipality overpaid.
The management of the company's cash flows raises technical questions given that its debts to suppliers coincide with a million-dollar turnover.
Ineffectiveness and neglect that harmed 50,000 neighbors
Not only that, but it is known that today Colón Punilla S.A. owes about 500 million for water to the province, another 300 million to EPEC and 60 million to the same Municipality of La Calera for not paying the fees for its water treatment plant in the city. Since the company, province and municipality have reciprocal balances to settle, the most logical thing would have been to agree and not cut off the water for 50,000 Calerenses. This is also considering that the municipality invested more than 250 million in repairing the pumping of sewage liquids that should belong to the Colón Punilla network and that they were never
recognized.
Together, 10 days after extortively cutting off the water to the city, the lender's ineffectiveness became even more evident when the broken pipe leading to the water treatment plant revealed that the concession company did not have the necessary personnel or machinery to repair it. Once again the city ran out of water, the municipality had to leave to assist the neighbors and the province was responsible for repairing the plant
. The breakage of the inlet pipe to the water treatment plant revealed that Colón Punilla S.A. did not have the necessary personnel or machinery to repair it.
Questions about the destination of the funds The
questions that many neighbors, merchants and officials ask themselves are: Where did the more than 2 billion pesos paid by La Calera go to a company that cannot repair its main water treatment plant? Where do the 800 million pesos a month paid by La Calera and 10 other cities in Sierras Chicas go to a company that barely has its own machinery and vehicles?
Where do those almost 10 billion that the company receives per year and is not able to pay for the water it receives from the province, the electricity it receives from EPEC or the municipal taxes go?
Faced with the strong suspicion that the company was mismanaging public resources, Mayor Rambaldi's attitude of first checking if he received what he was paying for and then stopping payments until everything that was overpaid is recognized, is an example of what should be done by a public official in the face of any suspicion of theft or corruption.
For two weeks now, the province and the municipality have set up a dialogue table aimed at analyzing the balance in favor of La Calera. Meanwhile, the history of water in La Calera tells us about politicians who give up resources in order to return to power and others, such as the case of Rambaldi, who have come to fight the cultural battle to the last consequences.
The municipality awaits an official response that includes the recognition of the balance in favor while continuing in permanent dialogue with provincial authorities.
