The minister said that a water tariff formula has been formulated and will be submitted to the cabinet, parliament and COPE committee.
A public private partnership model will set the path for Sri Lanka’s water sector, the island nation’s minister of water supply, Jeevan Thondaman informed at a press conference. The new modality will specifically focus on rural water supply, he said.
“Not privatization, but public private partnerships,” Thondaman said at a press conference. “When we enhance private sector participation, we create a more competitive industry with better quality and cheaper prices.”
He said that a water tariff formula has been formulated and will be submitted to the cabinet, parliament and COPE committee, he said.
This follows discussions with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
“Once this is in place, we will be able to attract investors to come on board,” the minister said. “The water sector till now has not had a PPP model – we want to bring in private public sector partnerships in rural communities’ water supply. We believe they will be able to work hand in hand with community-based organizations to provide water to those who need it.”
The minister gave examples of top-down approaches that were making the water supply system dysfunctional.
“I can give you one example, when you look at the water bottle that is being manufactured by the Water Board, you will see it’s from the Hanthana Estate; but people in Hanthana Estate still don’t have drinking water. There has been a top to bottom approach. Now we want to go rural first.” Most projects in the water sector had stalled post-crisis, Thondaman said, and the priority now was to resume them before attracting further investment into the sector.
