Native name | Agua y Saneamientos Argentinos S.A. |
---|---|
Company type | S.A. |
Industry | Sanitation |
Predecessor |
|
Founded | March 2006 |
Founder | Néstor Kirchner |
Headquarters | , |
Area served | Buenos Aires autonomous city Greater Buenos Aires |
Key people | Oscar Ferrari (President) [1] |
Products | Drinking water, sewer service |
Owner | Government of Argentina |
Number of employees | 8,000 [2] (2022) |
Parent | Ministry of Interior |
Website | aysa.com.ar |
Argentine Water and Sanitation (Spanish : Agua y Saneamientos Argentinos, mostly known for its acronym AySA) is a state-owned company of Argentina dedicated to supplying the public with running water and sewer services. Created in 2006 after the Government of Argentina rescinded the contract with "Aguas Argentinas", a corporate group that had granted concession during the Carlos Menem's administration in the 1990s. This way, 90% of the company remained under the control of the Ministry of the Interior, Public Works and Housing, [3] later falling into the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Works when it was reformed back into its own ministerial portfolio. [4]
AySA's operation area includes the Buenos Aires autonomous city and 25 partidos of Greater Buenos Aires. As of May 2022, the company had 8,000 employees. [2]
In 1824 the government of Buenos Aires, under the administration of Bernardino Rivadavia, took out an international loan from Baring Brothers to build the port of Buenos Aires and the construction of a potable water system in the city. Nevertheless, those works were never carried out. [5]
On July 18, 1912, "Obras Sanitarias de la Nación" (OSN) was established by Law 8,889 as part of the first Sanitation Plan of 1909 under the presidency of Roque Sáenz Peña. OSN began to expand its area of operation, reaching cities outside Buenos Aires Province. By 1910, 14 capital cities of Argentina had a running water system, with four of them also including sewer system.
After Perón was deposed by the Revolución Libertadora in 1955, the investments decreased abruptly, leaving the preventive maintenance behind. From then on, only urgent works were carried out, resulting in a deterioration of the service, also affected by the rampant inflation in the country. Since the 1960s, OSN associated with local cooperative companies that supply services to small cities (less than 50,000 people each), decentralising operations. In 1973, under the Héctor Cámpora administration, a plant was built in General Belgrano to supply areas of the Buenos Aires south region. Works finished in 1975. [6]
In 1980, all the water services were transferred to the provinces, with Obras Sanitarias focusing only in Buenos Aires.
The government of Carlos Menem carried out a plan of privatization that included OSN, granting concession to "Aguas Argentinas", a corporation group formed by French-owned Suez Environnement, and Spanish Aguas de Barcelona and Banco Galicia. The contract set a term of 20 years of concession, then extended during the government of Fernando de la Rúa. [7]
The OSN debts were not absorbed by Aguas Argentinas, leaving them to the Argentine state. OSN was dissolved in August. Through decree n° 999/92, the rates were increased 74%. [8] The service quality decreased in several cities of Greater Buenos Aires, with no new investments from the company. Maintenance works ceased in order to save costs. [9] From May 1993 to January 2002, rates for residential user increased 88%. [10]
After the 2001 economic crisis, the company suspended payments to suppliers, with USD 57 million debts in payment to suppliers and 102 million in debts to the Argentine state, plus AR$ 97 million in unpaid debts. [11]
According to a study by the Auditor General of Argentina, only 12% of the water was treated by Aguas Argentinas, with the rest poured to the river in Berazategui district. [12] After having found fraudulent invoices for non-existent works carried out and false addresses given, [13] the contract was revoked by the Néstor Kirchner administration in March 2006. [14]
As a result, the 90% of the company became state-owned, with a 10% handed by its employees. By 2015, sewerage system reached 7,207,546 people. [15]
In 2019, Malena Galmarini was appointed president of AySA, becoming the first woman to preside over the company. [16]
Route 60, known locally as El Sesenta, runs from Constitución station, in the centre of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina to the Tigre Club in the partido of Tigre. The service is operated by Micro Ómnibus Norte S.A. (MONSA). Since November 1980, it has also managed the routes of the defunct bus route 38, which are currently provided under the number and colours of bus route 60, being distinguishable from the rest of the line only by the route indicator.
Metrovías S.A. is an Argentine privately held company that operates the Metropolitan services of the Urquiza Line. 90% of Metrovías' shares are held by Grupo Roggio. Metrovías was also operator of the Buenos Aires Underground from 1995 to December 2021, when "Emova Movilidad S.A." took over the concession of the service for 12 years. Emova is also part of the Roggio Group and also associated with Metrovías.
Water supply and sanitation in Colombia have been improved in many ways over the past decades. Between 1990 and 2010, access to improved sanitation increased from 67% to 82%, but access to improved water sources increased only slightly from 89% to 94%. In particular, coverage in rural areas lags behind. Furthermore, despite improvements, the quality of water and sanitation services remains inadequate. For example, only 73% of those receiving public services receive water of potable quality and in 2006 only 25% of the wastewater generated in the country underwent any kind of treatment.
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Water supply and sanitation in Chile were once considered efficient and equitable but in 2022 Chile struggled to reliably provide water throughout the country due to drought. Chile's water resources have been strained by the Chilean water crisis, which was partially caused by a continuing megadrought that began in 2010, along with an increased demand for agricultural and other commercial interests.
Drinking water supply and sanitation in Argentina is characterized by relatively low tariffs, mostly reasonable service quality, low levels of metering and high levels of consumption for those with access to services. At the same time, according to the WHO, 21% of the total population remains without access to house connections and 52% of the urban population do not have access to sewerage. The responsibility for operating and maintaining water and sanitation services rests with 19 provincial water and sewer companies, more than 100 municipalities and more than 950 cooperatives, the latter operating primarily in small towns. Among the largest water and sewer companies are Agua y Saneamientos Argentinos (AYSA) and Aguas Bonarenses S.A. (ABSA), both operating in Greater Buenos Aires, Aguas Provinciales de Santa Fe, and Aguas Cordobesas SA, all of them now publicly owned. In 2008 there were still a few private concessions, such as Aguas de Salta SA, which is majority-owned by Argentine investors, and Obras Sanitarias de Mendoza (OSM).
Ferrocarriles Metropolitanos S.A. was a company set up by the Argentine government in 1991, during the presidency of Carlos Menem, to oversee the privatisation of commuter rail services within the city of Buenos Aires in Argentina. The company granted concessions to Metropolitano, Ferrovías, Metrovías, and Trenes de Buenos Aires for the operation of services which had previously been run by state-owned companies since the nationalisation of the railways in 1948. With its task complete, FEMESA was wound up in 1997.
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The Belgrano Sur line is an Argentine 1,000 mmmetre gauge commuter rail service in the Greater Buenos Aires area, currently operated by state-owned enterprise Trenes Argentinos. The Belgrano Sur runs over tracks and through stations built by the Franco–Belgian-owned Compañía General de Buenos Aires and British Midland companies at the beginning of the 20th century.
Railway privatisation in Argentina was a process which began in 1989 under the presidency of Carlos Menem, following a series of neoliberal economic reforms. This primarily consisted of breaking up the state-owned railway company Ferrocarriles Argentinos (FA) and allowing the former lines to be operated by private companies instead of the state.
The Argentine railway network consisted of a 47,000 km (29,204 mi) network at the end of the Second World War and was, in its time, one of the most extensive and prosperous in the world. However, with the increase in highway construction, there followed a sharp decline in railway profitability, leading to the break-up in 1993 of Ferrocarriles Argentinos (FA), the state railroad corporation. During the period following privatisation, private and provincial railway companies were created and resurrected some of the major passenger routes that FA once operated.
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