`Water not merely public property'

`Water not merely public property'

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Legislators staved off public demand for a revision of the water
resource bill, which opens the doors wide to the privatization of
water, insisting that the natural resource had economic value.

Erman Suparno, chairman of House Commission IV overseeing
natural resources, among other things, said water had both social
and economic functions.

He maintained that people's daily need for water would be
given priority, but once it was met, any surplus water should be
managed by private firms.

"To some extent, we need private firms, so what we should do
is limit their ownership of the water sector," he said at a
seminar on the water resources bill held on Wednesday by the
Science and Technology Writers Society (Mapiptek).

Other speakers included the senior operation officer of the
World Bank Office in Indonesia, George Soraya, former environment
minister Sonny Keraf and Director General of Water Resources at
the Ministry of Settlement and Regional Infrastructure Roestam
Sjarief.

Erman said private firms' control of the water sector should
be limited to a maximum 49 percent, thus allowing state-owned
enterprises to retain the lion's share of the sector.

He said private control of the tap water business, for example
in Jakarta, where the local government's share stood at only 10
percent, needed reevaluating.

"We must also review the mineral water business, following
reports that it has caused farms located near those plants to run
out of water," he said.

However, he said restrictions on the maximum control of the
water sector by private firms would not be spelled out in the
bill, saying the spirit of the draft bill already guaranteed that
the economic benefits of water would not detract from its social
function.

The water resource bill has met opposition from scholars, non-
governmental organizations and farmers' associations for allowing
the privatization of the water sector.

Critics say privatization would deprive the general public of
access to water.

Soraya of the World Bank suggested that the issue of water
management focus on how to provide all people with access to
clean water, and that it could either be state- or private-run.

He said it was obvious that the government alone could not
afford to finance projects worth billions of dollars to meet the
nation's demand for clean water.