Revealed, Only 19 PDAMs With Healthy Status Deserve Private Cooperation

Minister of Public Works Dody Hanggodo (photo: dock. VOI)

The Ministry of Public Works (PU) encourages local governments (Pemda) to cooperate with the private sector to improve the quality and scope of drinking water services for the community.

The reason is that throughout 2024, the coverage of pipeline access has only reached 19.67 percent, so there is still a gap of 80.24 percent that must be pursued.

As for the cooperation, the local government was asked to involve the Regional Drinking Water Company (PDAM) or Regional Owned Enterprises (BUMD) for Drinking Water.

The basis is Presidential Instruction (Inpres) Number 1 of 2024 concerning the Acceleration of Drinking Water Supply and Domestic Waste Management Services.

PU Minister Dody Hanggodo said cooperation with the private sector can be carried out by the local government through BUMD Air Drinking which has a healthy performance and applies a full recovery fee or full cost recovery (FCR) for three consecutive years.

Based on 2024 data, there are 258 BUMD Drinking Water with healthy performance, 96 BUMD Drinking Water with unhealthy performance and 40 BUMD Drinking Water with sick performance.

For now, of the 258 BUMDs of Drinking Water with healthy performance, only 19 BUMDs of Drinking Water meet the criteria to cooperate with the private sector.

"We encourage district/city governments to strengthen cooperation with the private sector to accelerate the achievement of the target of 100 percent pipeline access by 2045," said Dody as quoted from his written statement, Thursday, March 13.

Dody also emphasized the importance of regional heads' attention to adjusting drinking water tariffs to make it more attractive to investors.

In addition, there needs to be intervention from local governments against 136 BUMDs who are still performing unhealthy or sick so that they can operate more optimally.

"One of the goals of establishing BUMD is to provide benefits. If you are still unwell or sick, there should be strategic steps from the local government to fix it," concluded Dody.