Public Policy or Profit ‘policy’
I am back..in the capital city of Indonesia. It’s a weird felling to live and work here again for more than two weeks. Good thing that i’m easy to adapt with changes.ha ha ha
So again i’m dealing with water issues. It’s water privatisastion!!! Oooo yeeeahhh, tricky issue yet it’s important.
Here’s the thing. Less than 30% of indonesians in rural area get water access (hell yeah).Meahwhile everbody need water. If people hear about water privatisation without clear understanding most likely they will ’scream’ and say ‘Water is from the Creator, it is not right to make it as a business’. Then i will say ‘Dude,try to open your eyes wider plus read more will ya!’ 
Why would i say that? Here’s why:
Yes, the water is made from the Creator. It’s given. But, it is the process to make it usable that is needing some funds. PDAM give services to provide the water not selling the water.
Mmm btw, before i get wrong impression i have to say again that this is fully my opinion and i’m not representing any organization.
The payment that goes to customer is to cover water pipe system from the mountain and or to process the raw water/waste water into water that can be used for customer. It is supposedly to be ready use but again since limited buget to maintain the water pipe with all the holes and or leakage all the way to the house, of course we as consumer have to boil it first.
If we think with more than 250 million people in Indonesia and if we really want to achieve Millenium Development Goals then there’s no way we are able to provide water for the poor unless together with national policy and private sectors work really hard to find alternative for water financing.
One of the report taken from www.psiru.org/reports/2003-03-w-finance.doc says this:
"water pays for water is no longer realistic in developing countries. Even Europe and the US subsidise services…Service users cant pay for the level of investments required, not for social projects…"
So it shows the dillema. Again situation in our country, organization who rules the water is a owned by Government. As usual (heck, i dont want to give wrong statement, but this is what i feel as a good citizen who pay annual tax) a lot of management issues within the organization has to be re-structured. If i’m in private sector side, i would not give a financial support or even soft loan for water financing if i can’t see Return on Investment plus i dont want to give any financial support or loan to such lack of management organization. We’re not talking about 1 trillion but lots more, rite!
Despite of that situation, alternative for water financing is really crucial to help our brethern and sister all around our nation may have ‘water’. The first step is advocacy issue about what is alternative financing to water access. Second i think our gang have to prepare great fact sheets to have support from the one who holds the supremacy - and then they came out with national advocacy. (Geez, i hope it’s really okay to talk about this). Last, strong support for matrix of ROI and all other thingy related to convince private sector to jot down the details and make it really happen… well if it’s not this year, at least we have to reach the MDG before 2015.
Water issue has been an issue since early 1990s.. somehow it’s not so booming that people easily forgotten about one of the most important element in our life. So yeah i think it’s public policy not profit policy…
