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Keep the management of the integrated water service (SIS) in public hands even after 31 December 2025, when the terms of the concession currently held by Acquedotto Pugliese, a spa under total regional control, will expire.
With the law approved by a majority of the regional council for the “Constitution of the Committee for the control of Acquedotto Pugliese”, the Apulian municipalities will be able to establish, within 90 days of the entry into force of the regulatory text, a joint-stock company, a special purpose vehicle, total public participation and joint control between the region and local authorities, to which the Sis can be entrusted in house.
The Region will contribute up to a maximum of 400 thousand euros to the share capital of the spa, to be divided among all the municipalities based on the size of the infrastructure intended for the management of the integrated water service. No private individuals are admitted to the company and once established, the region will begin the gradual and free transfer, up to a maximum of 20%, of the shares of Aqp spa in favor of the participating municipalities, in proportion to the said amount. A size that Fabiano Amati, the president of the regional council commission who last June presented a bill on the subject, quantifies “at around 11.3 billion euros in value of the works”.
With this law, therefore, the Council wants to avoid the risk that compliance with the EU directive – which requires that the management of the water service must go to tender – will lead, from 2026, to the control of water in private hands. And in fact the comment of the President of the Region, Michele Emiliano, is entirely centered on this aspect: «We will have the possibility of saying that our water is public twice. It is public because it is public and it is also public because of how it is distributed, because it will be distributed together with the Municipalities, nevertheless in a regime of competitive capacity.”
Domenico Laforgia, president of AQP, defines this legislative choice as the best for the territory, providing an in-house solution and giving the Puglia Water Authority – owner of the Water Service – all the options contemplated by the law. «Already today we operate with the Puglia Water Authority, which is the representative body of the municipalities for the public governance of water – he states -. The Region-Aip-Aqp scheme has proven to work very well. The water will be able to remain public and the heritage we represent will continue to belong to all Apulian citizens.”