Water company owed 850 million euros by state, municipalities
The president of the Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company (EYDAP) on Tuesday said that the state-owned company is owed 850 million euros in unpaid bills from state agencies and local authorities.
“We can’t be cutting off the water supply to simple folk over a 100-euro unpaid bill and at the same time have to pay as much as 3 million euros a month in late fees from large debts toward the company,” EYDAP’s president, Stelios Stavridis, told the Athens-Macedonia News Agency.
Specifically, Stavridis said that local authorities owe a total of 225 million euros, which comes to 350 million euros with late fees, while ministries and other public authorities have run up a bill of 500 million euros.
The bulk of the debt from municipalities, Stavridis said, comes from local authorities that do not have their own network and levy the cost of water from municipal taxes without then paying over the money to EYDAP. This is a practice that has been going on for years, said Stavridis, who was appointed chief executive officer of Greece’s biggest water utility in late October.
“The matter is killing EYDAP,” Stavridis said. “From now on, anyone who doesn’t pay will have their supply cut off.”
Stavridis added that EYDAP has no immediate intention of raising its rates.
