"The government wants all PDAMs in Indonesia to set the target of being able to provide proper and healthy clean water," Amin remarked during the Indonesia Water and Wastewater Expo and Forum 2023 event in Jakarta, Tuesday.
He highlighted the importance of providing healthy drinking water and proper sanitation infrastructures in a bid to improve the people's health standards and prevent stunting cases in children from rising.
In the 2020-2024 National Mid-Term Development Plan (RPJMN), the government has stipulated the target to provide proper drinking water access services to all households by 2024, including 15 percent of households provided with access to safe drinking water and 30 percent with piped drinking water access.
Based on the government's data, in 2022, Indonesia has managed to provide proper drinking water access services to 91 percent of households, including 11.8 percent of households, with access to safe drinking water, and 20.69 percent, with piped drinking water access.
According to the RPJMN, the government is targeting to provide proper sanitation access to 90 percent of households and also to completely eradicate the number of cases of open defecation by the end of 2024.
According to the vice president, limited budget poses a major obstacle to the government in the efforts to provide clean water access and proper sanitation facilities.
The government requires a budget, totaling Rp123.4 trillion (around US$8.3 billion), for providing clean water supply services, with 10 million house connections.
However, the available funds only reach Rp36.6 trillion (around US$2.4 billion), of which Rp21 trillion is being allocated from the State Budget (APBN), while the rest is sourced from the Regional Expenditure Revenue Budgets (APBDs).
"With that in mind, it is essential to make financing innovation and expand the financing cooperation scope by involving private sectors with the public-private partnership (PPP) cooperation scheme," he remarked.
Amin also noted that governments at the central and regional levels should formulate financing innovations that can appeal to stakeholders.
The vice president expressed belief that the "source to tap" scheme can be used as a solution to address issues related to the sustainability of PPP drinking water supply projects.
Such a scheme involves efforts in integrating infrastructure construction from upstream to downstream and bringing together central and regional governments as well as related stakeholders to jointly work on drinking water supply projects.
Furthermore, the scheme, called Indonesia Water Fund (IWF), is currently being implemented to finance projects for construction of clean water supply facilities in the country.
Vice President Amin encouraged private sectors to partake in supporting the government's efforts to provide drinking water access facilities with clear targets, measurable coverage areas, and relatively short payback period.
Moreover, he expressed the idea to provide incentives to investors, who support the construction of clean drinking water access facilities.
In his speech, Amin also highlighted the need to make improvements in the governance and institutional administration of drinking water distribution in the financial, service, operational, and human resource aspects.
Data provided by the Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) Ministry in 2021 showed that only some 57 percent of all PDAMs in Indonesia had attained the status of "healthy," while the rest had acquired the "unhealthy" and "sick" statuses.
"The PDAMs that have yet to attain healthy status can learn from the success stories of the ones with healthy status and implement their steps to success according to the conditions in each region," Amin pointed out.
On the occasion, he also specifically addressed regional governments, saying that they should be able to create a conducive business climate in regions and strengthen commitment to providing the finest drinking water services to the people.
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Translator: Rangga Pandu, Tegar Nurfitra
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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