Disputed water bill stays unchanged
Fabiola Desy Unidjaja Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Despite considerable public opposition, the House of Representatives began on Thursday to review the controversial bill on water resources but early indications appear as if there is little commitment to make significant changes into the bill.
In the meantime, President Megawati Soekarnoputri called on all sides to give special attention to the contentious bill to prevent a water crisis in the future.
House Commission III with deals with agricultural issues made minor changes to the bill, which was scheduled to be endorsed earlier this week, in its additional deliberations with the Director General for Irrigation at the Resettlement and Regional Infrastructure Ministry Roestam Sjarief.
Erwin Pardede, a commission member, said his commission was looking over the contentious articles but made no major changes to accommodate the public's opposition.
He said the commission and the government decided to review the draft law "and both sides approved certain (contentious) articles."
He conceded that both the commission and the government were still divided over one article in particular, as it stipulates the establishment of a regulatory body to issue water permits.
The bill, designed by the Cabinet, has met strong opposition from numerous sides, including local non-governmental organizations, which accused the government of commercializing water resources rather than preserving it and allowing more access to a majority of the people for daily consumption and farming.
The bill is meant to regulate the issuance of permits for commercial water use and household/office use, but it falls short of preventing the possible monopolization of water.
In addition, the bill also requires farmers to request a permit (for a fee) from the authorities to use irrigation water for farms.
Budi Santosa Wignyosukarto, the program coordinator from Gadjah Mada University, expressed disappointment that the House and the government had not made significant changes to the controversial sections.
"They've merely reworded some bits with softer words on the controversial articles but the substance has not been changed," he said on Thursday.
He said that in the absence of significant change, the bill would only benefit wealthy people who had access to water.
Fellow scholar F. Wijanto Hadipuro from the Sugijapranata Catholic University in Semarang, Central Java, concurred, saying that the government would have no mechanism at its disposal to control market-based water management.
He warned against a possible cartel of private companies who would control all the water if the House and the government approved the bill.
"The water resources are quite likely to be monopolized since it will require a large investment. Without stern regulations, the government would not be able to guarantee access to clean and affordable water for the people who earn their living on traditional farms.
"I am not sure the government will have any control," Wijanto remarked.
A number of NGOs have accused the government of being indirectly pressured by multinational corporations to endorse the law so they could invest in the water commercialization in the country.
They claim that both the government and the House were being pushed by such companies, as well as the World Bank, to endorse the bill in October so that the World Bank could disburse the remaining US$150 million from the agreed $300 million. The World Bank disbursed the first $150 million recently to finance the water reform program, including the privatization of water resources.
Meanwhile, President Megawati called on the public to preserve water to prevent another crisis next dry season.
Everyone has his/her own obligation to preserve water resources, especially in their daily consumption, she said in Bogor on Thursday.
"We should not wait for a water crisis to hit us, before we being conserving," she stressed, warning of another major water crisis in the country in the next decade, if people failed to conserve.