Bekasi water company seeks private investors

BEKASI, West Java (JP): The Bekasi administration-owned water company, PDAM, is inviting private companies to help multiply its production capacity to 5,000 liters of water per second from the current level of 1,000 liters under a joint-operation scheme.

"We need a total investment of Rp 500 billion (US$211.8 million) for the expansion project, which is slated to start in 2000," the firm's chief executive, Dudung T. Ruskandi, said.

He said the investment is required for establishing new water- processing terminals and new pipeline-distribution networks.

"We welcome any corporations interested in conducting feasibility studies prior to the establishment of a joint- operation business with us," he told The Jakarta Post in a recent interview.

Dudung said the planned joint operations will be based on a 25-year contract in accordance with the Minister of Home Affairs' Decree No. 04/1990 and Decree No. 20/1996.

He said that the joint-operation plans have been approved by the West Java governor and the Bekasi regent.

"We will provide land for prospective joint-operation projects," he noted.

PDAM currently supplies clean water to 32,000 customers in 16 of Bekasi's 23 districts. The customers represent about 160,000 people or only 5.3 percent of Bekasi's population of three million.

Dudung said that in line with the local administration's target, his firm should increase the number of its customers to 60,000 after the completion of the expansion project.

The demand for clean water has been increasing steadily in Bekasi since six years ago due to increases in the establishment of new housing complexes and industrial estates.

The administration's data show that Bekasi, whose population growth reaches 6.5 percent per annum, currently has 300 housing complexes and 15 industrial estates.

Dudung said that his company cannot raise new loans at present because it has accrued large amounts of loans over the past years.

In 1990/1991, for example, the company obtained a Rp 4.6- billion loan from the government for a water installation project. Last year, the company also raised a loan of $11 million from the Asian Development Bank and Rp 5.14 billion from the government,

The loan from the Asian Development Bank carries an interest rate of 11 percent per annum, Dudung said. (kod)