Jakarta should learn about water from Cambodia

Jakarta should learn about water from Cambodia

Unlike Jakarta and other cities in Indonesia, the tap water
situation in Cambodia's capital of Phnom Penh is improving, as
the state-owned water company is very hard working and dedicated
to providing water to all citizens.

In Phnom Penh, according to state-owned Phnom Penh Water
Supply Authority (PPWSA), 75 percent of its over 1 million
population is connected to the tap water lines thanks to the
company's massive expansion launched since the end of civil war
in 1993.

Another astonishing figure is that PPWSA has cut down illegal
connections to less than 5 customers last year from 300 in 1993,
and water prices are at less than half of that of Jakarta, at 14
U.S. cents per cubic meter. Over 78 percent of its customers pay
their bills on time. Some 4,700 poor families have also been
connected to PPWSA's tap water service with a special installment
payment.

PPWSA is on schedule to make a profit by 2005, and has an
estimated capacity to supply over 1.5 million people in the
capital.

As a comparison, in Jakarta, only a small percentage of the
population is connected to the tap water system. Leakages due to
illegal connections and poor infrastructure reaches almost 50
percent, water fees stand at Rp 2,700 (30 U.S. cents) per cubic
meter and rising, and the two private water providers have been
unable to make any profits so far.

Ek Sonn Chan, General Manager of PPWSA since 1993 admitted
that it was difficult to expand the tap water distribution to
meet the rising demand at first as the tap water infrastructure
was obsolete, and existing customers were unwilling to pay their
water bills, so leakage and theft was rampant.

"It was a tough challenge for our teams to improve the poor
water service just after the conflict period ended in our country
and we started undergoing a peaceful era," he said.

But PPWSA was fortunate as the Cambodian Government gave its
full support to the expansion program and it could concentrate on
autonomously managing its funds to improve water services, Sonn
Chan said.

One of the most important support efforts was when the
government agreed to raise tap water charges for customers twice
between 1993 and 2002. The increase was actually expected to be
three times during that period.

Door-to-door campaigning was carried out to ask the existing
customers to pay their water bills, to require illegal customers
to get legal connections with PPWSA and to make offers to
potential customers to connect to PPWSA's system.

With a relatively lower price, people started to connect to
PPWSA rather than getting water from private vendors that could
sell it at 10 times the price of PPWSA water.

-- Moch. N. Kurniawan