Water and Sanitation Sector in Karachi
itation sector Water and Sanitation Sector in Karachi Establishing the context and structuring the framework for institutional reforms
Author: Farhan Anwar Shehri-Citizens of a Better Environment Pakistan, Member of OECD Watch Email: fanwar@onkhura.com
Abstract
The water and sanitation sector in Karachi (the largest city in Pakistan with an estimated population of about 16 million) is faced with a crisis of governance. The Karachi Water & Sewerage Board – a monopoly public water utility is similarly challenged with operations becoming technically deficient and financially non-viable. Recently, the KW&SB management has initiated a series of reforms in areas such as revenue and operational management and improving customer services. Facilitating institutional reforms are three External Support Agencies namely, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Japanese Bank for Investment and Cooperation (JBIC) and the Water & Sanitation Program – South Asia (WSP-SA) the World Bank who are proposing among other things, decentralizing horizontal and vertical control within the public utility and opening it up for possible options of private sector involvement and the ‘corporatization’ of the utility. Such a scenario is yet to receive the critical acceptance from the relevant government quarters and also the full support of the civil society and other formal and informal stakeholders. The ‘Paper’ stresses that while there is a general consensus amongst the key stakeholders on initiating a reform process each may have a different perspective on reform and may visualize a reformed sector in a manner that is conflicting with another’s vision. These conflicting visions have to merge in order to achieve optimal and feasible reforms in the sector. The ‘Paper’ poses some questions and sets some landmarks for reforms based on the current support for policy reform that may or may not allow for reshaping the utility and the associated sector towards receiving investment within a
Author: Farhan Anwar Shehri-Citizens of a Better Environment Pakistan, Member of OECD Watch Email: fanwar@onkhura.com
Abstract
The water and sanitation sector in Karachi (the largest city in Pakistan with an estimated population of about 16 million) is faced with a crisis of governance. The Karachi Water & Sewerage Board – a monopoly public water utility is similarly challenged with operations becoming technically deficient and financially non-viable. Recently, the KW&SB management has initiated a series of reforms in areas such as revenue and operational management and improving customer services. Facilitating institutional reforms are three External Support Agencies namely, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Japanese Bank for Investment and Cooperation (JBIC) and the Water & Sanitation Program – South Asia (WSP-SA) the World Bank who are proposing among other things, decentralizing horizontal and vertical control within the public utility and opening it up for possible options of private sector involvement and the ‘corporatization’ of the utility. Such a scenario is yet to receive the critical acceptance from the relevant government quarters and also the full support of the civil society and other formal and informal stakeholders. The ‘Paper’ stresses that while there is a general consensus amongst the key stakeholders on initiating a reform process each may have a different perspective on reform and may visualize a reformed sector in a manner that is conflicting with another’s vision. These conflicting visions have to merge in order to achieve optimal and feasible reforms in the sector. The ‘Paper’ poses some questions and sets some landmarks for reforms based on the current support for policy reform that may or may not allow for reshaping the utility and the associated sector towards receiving investment within a