The Spanish government’s embattled water infrastructure procurement company, Acuamed, has disclosed that it will revoke a €194 million (US$206 million) contract it signed with Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC) in 2008 to cleanse the Flix reservoir.
Acuamed has various contracts – including its contract with FCC – undergoing judicial investigation for alleged fraud. In January 2017, Acuamed announced that FCC was unsuccessful in taking out 33 tonnes of poisonous chemical contaminants from the reservoir water.
According to an Acuamed spokeswoman, FCC’s contract will be rescinded by the end of April. Majority of the payment for the operation had been made, though FCC is still seeking “a significant number of millions of Euros” from Acuamed.
FCC has been looking to terminate the contract since December 2016 through arbitration, and told Global Water Intelligence (GWI), “The decontamination has been completed as specified in the terms of the contract, as attested by the government’s scientific research council (CSIC),”
Source: Global Water Intelligence
