No Problem With PAM Jaya New Cooperation With The Private After The End Of Privateization Of Water, But Don't Upper Rate

ILLUSTRATION/ANTARA PHOTO/Muhammad Adimaja/aww.

JAKARTA - The cooperation between water services or water privatization of Perumda PAM Jaya and Palyja and Aetra has officially ended. However, PAM Jaya is collaborating with PT Moya Indonesia with a bundling financing scheme.

Responding to this, a public policy observer from Trisakti University, Trubus Rahadiansyah, said that this new collaboration was not a problem.

This is because PT Moya's role in this collaboration only operates the raw water treatment plant into clean water in the drinking water supply system (SPAM) built by the government. Moya did not participate in providing services and collecting water rates for residents like the previous cooperation.

"The large need for public clean water has led the DKI Provincial Government to cooperate. PAM Jaya has not been able to provide its own water due to infrastructure problems for expensive clean water," Trubus said as quoted on Friday, February 3.

However, there is a main thing that must be considered by PAM Jaya as a business entity owned by the DKI Provincial Government is to maintain the net water tariff paid by the community. According to Trubus, there should not be an increase in tariffs caused by this new cooperation.

"What must be anticipated is not to make the price even more difficult for people because it is not affordable. Right, this is what makes people prefer to use groundwater. Regarding this tariff, there must be strict, clear, and transparent supervision," explained Trubus.

For information, water privatization began in 25 years ago. On June 6, 1997, PAM Jaya signed a water privatization collaboration with PT Garuda Dipta Semesta with Lyonnaise desaux (now Palyja) and with PT Kekarpola Airindo with Thames Water Overseas Ltd (now Aetra).

The water privatization contract expires on February 1, 2023. As of January 2, water services in the capital city are fully controlled by the government.

Currently, PAM Jaya's water service coverage is still 65 percent in the capital city. The DKI Provincial Government has assigned PAM Jaya to meet the 100 percent service target by 2030.

To achieve this, PAM Jaya and PT Moya Indonesia signed a cooperation agreement regarding the implementation of a drinking water supply system by optimizing existing assets and providing new assets with a bundling financing scheme.

PAM Jaya President Director Arief Nasrudin emphasized that this is different from the previous cooperation agreement with Palyja and Aetra which was carried out from upstream to downstream. This collaboration is only carried out in the production department and this is generally done by drinking water companies in Indonesia.

"PAM JAYA continues to provide direct services to the community and the cooperation water treatment plant (IPA) is owned and controlled by PAM Jaya," said Arief.

Arief added that PAM Jaya's collaboration with PT Moya Indonesia is still being carried out in full by PAM Jaya. In fact, PAM Jaya has the right to stop cooperation when necessary.

This different cooperation, of course, demands a bigger role from PAM Jaya in terms of operations and services to customers. So, this sounding vendor activity needs to be carried out because PAM Jaya will carry out functions in the distribution and service process," added Arief.