Water an economic commodity: Minister

Water an economic commodity: Minister

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A minister has insisted that besides its social impact, water is
an economic commodity that should be included in the
controversial bill on water resources.

Minister of Settlements and Regional Infrastructure Soenarno
said on Friday that the government was trying to produce
legislation on water resources because water was an economic
commodity that had started to become scarce.

Compared with Papua, he said, where water had yet to acquire
an economic value, water in Java had become scarce and therefore
its utilization had to be controlled otherwise most people would
have inadequate access to potable water.

"Due to its scarcity, water is considered to have an economic
value. Consequently, it needs to be treated as a valuable
commodity. (People might say ) water is God-given, why should we
pay for it? However, to turn raw water into drinking water
requires facilities and investment," he argued.

The amended 1945 Constitution stipulates that water must be
controlled by the state; it also protects people's social and
economic welfare, he said, referring to cooperatives, plus state-
owned and regionally-owned enterprises.

However, Soenarno said, the bill would create a mandate for
water management for the government, which, in turn, might invite
private investment, in a bid to provide access to clean water for
all.

"Regionally-owned enterprises are a burden on the government,"
Soenarno remarked, referring to most regionally-owned tap water
companies.

The government's stance that water is an economic commodity
contradicts a variety of UN covenants and international
agreements that view access to water as a fundamental human
right.

During the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto in March, the UN
emphasized the need to promote people's rights to water and
encouraged delegates to include an explicit reference to water as
a human right in a ministerial declaration made at the
conference.

The state, consequently, is obliged to ensure that all
citizens have access to water.

Many non-governmental organizations have said that the
establishment of a bill on water resources is connected to the
Water Resources Sector Adjustment Loan (WATSAL) from the World
Bank, worth a total of US$300 million.

On Friday, dozens of protesters staged a rally outside the
Jakarta Stock Exchange Building, where the bank has its offices,
demanding the bank not intervene in deliberations on the ongoing
bill on water resources.

The scheme requires that Indonesia reform its legislation on
water, including to allow the privatization of water.

Soenarno conceded that the bill, which has met with opposition
from many quarters, had something to do with the WATSAL scheme.

"But there are also others, not only WATSAL, with an interest
in the bill," he said.

The last disbursement of some $150 million from the bank is
expected to be made this year, if the government manages to enact
the bill this December.

Soenarno is listed as vice chairman of the Indonesian
government's WATSAL Task Force, according to the World Bank
project document issued in 1999.

The document stipulates, "with the advent of the fiscal
crisis, the World Bank proposed in April 1998 a program of
requisite sector reforms that should be supported under a WATSAL,
which would be part of the overall macroeconomic adjustment
lending that had evolved as the Bank's revised Country Assistance
Strategy. This proposal was accepted by the government of
Indonesia."