This article examines the limitations of governmental capacity to regulate private sector participation in urban water supply in developing countries through an analysis of the most dramatic failure to date of a major franchise contract for supplying water and sanitation services to a large city ± the 40-year concession awarded in September 1999 to Aguas del Tunari (AdT) in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Five months later, the population rioted against water tariff increases and the contract was cancelled. The paper analyses the background, context and factors that explain the failure of the concession and seeks to draw lessons for the regulation of future concessions.
SUMMARYThis article assesses the regulatory model for urban water supply services in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. Water supply services have been privately operated there since February 1998 after two companies-Thames PAM Jaya (TPJ), operating in Eastern Jakarta, and PAM Lyonnaise Jaya (PALYJA), operating in Western Jakarta-signed 25-years concession contracts with the state-owned Jakarta City Water Company (PAM Jaya). An independent regulatory body, the Jakarta Water Supply Regulatory Body (JWSRB) was established in 2001. The article compares the regulatory system in Jakarta with the French and English approaches to water regulation. It then assesses this regulatory system from the perspective of customers in order to assess how well customer protection, a central purpose of regulation, is being performed. The article concludes that although the essential regulatory mechanisms and activities are operating in Jakarta, the key regulatory role of customer protection is not being performed because customers do not perceive that they receive an acceptable level of water supply services.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.