More than 1.640 million pesos is the fine that the Superintendency of Health Services (SISS) applied to essal for the massive and prolonged water cut of 2019 in Osorno.
Superintendent Jorge Rivas detailed that this is the maximum fine guaranteed by law, which amounts to $1,640,878,080.
According to Biobío, Rivas explained that the fine relates to “having insome deficiencies in the quality of the drinking water production and distribution service; for having made deficiencies in the continuity of the drinking water distribution service due to an unscheduled outage between July 11 and 17, 2019; for having made deficiencies in the continuity of the drinking water distribution service due to an unscheduled outage between July 17 and 21, 2019; affecting the generality of the population with the lack of operation of the Caipulli drinking water plant.”
“For endangering the health of the population due to pollution of the distribution of water with oil; for having breached the instructions contained in ordinary SISS 3459 concerning emergency procedure; for having breached the instructions contained in ordinary SISS 3459 concerning alternative supply; for having breached the instructions contained in the ordinary SISS 4561 concerning deadlines for resolving committed works; and finally, because they have given manifestly erroneous information to the authorities and the population,” he added.
It is worth noting that the penalty relates to six of the nine charges charged to the company, including unscheduled water cuts, to compromise the health of the population and to provide erroneous information.
In the meantime, Essal could persist in new instances and bring an administrative appeal for replenishment with the SISS or, possibly, appeal to the courts of justice.
“It should be noted that in parallel indistinctly, it is continuing its course before the Superintendency of Health Services to process a special procedure aimed at determining the possible expiry of Osorno’s drinking water concessions, whose analysis is still in progress due to the large amount of technical, economic and legal information provided by the company, to which new background has been added , new steps and other presentations for the best resolution, among them, a process of selling the sanitary that could conclude with the arrival of a new owner for these concessions,” Rivas said.
