A new water bill was approved on Nov 13th with unanimous support of the Sandinista bench which critics say opens the door to the privatization of water services – including Ruth Herrera, the former director of ENACAL, who as a Sandinista led the fight against the privatization of water in the 1990s. While the final bill does state in article 4 “that potable water service will not be the object of any privatization,” Ruth states that “if it walks like a duck and quakes like a duck, it is a duck” since everything the bill establishes goes in this direction. “Remember when we analyzed the privatization document that was attempted to be done at that time [referring to the 1990s], nowhere was the word privatization found in the document, we went to Court, and at that time the Supreme Court said we were right, because all the articles were directed to that purpose,” said Herrera in an article published in La Prensa on Nov 16, 2020. The following article gives a fuller explanation of the bill that did end up being approved.
“The regime opens the door to the privatization of potable water service with the reform to the Water Law”
By Lucía Navas in La Prensa, Nov 12, 2020
In Nicaragua there are sectors interested in that water be privatized for some time, and now they appear flexible in the norm with an interest in turning water services into a business. They are opening the doors to the privatization of water and sewage, I am denouncing this without mincing any words”, said Ruth Selma Herrera, the former executive president of ENACAL.
With the reform of the General Law on National Water (Law 620) the door is opened for the regime, through the granting of concession licenses, to privatize potable water and sewage services, because greater participation of private enterprises will be promoted in the provision of services.
This can mean that thousands of users would be left even without the public subsidy, due to the fact that the new legal framework is going to focus that benefit on the population in rural zones, but it will be nearly impossible for them to access that benefit, due to the conditions imposed in the reform.
These risks of the reform of Law 620 were noted by the former executive president of the Nicaraguan Enterprise for Acuaducts and Sewage (ENACAL), Ruth Selma Herrera and the deputy of the Liberal Constitutional Party (PLC) Melba Martinez.
Deputy Martinez is part of the Environmental and Natural Resources Commission of the National Assembly, where the proposal for the modification of Law 620 was ruled on in an expedited process, from which were excluded consumer rights defender organizations, as well as local Water Committees.
The modification of the “Law of National Water and the creation of the National Council for the Development of water resources and the Commission for the sustainable administration of water resources” will be approved this Thursday, November 12, 2020 in the National Assembly.
Only the 79 deputies of the Sandinista Front of National Liberation (FSLN) would vote in favor of the proposal sent by the dictator Daniel Ortega. The 14 members of the Liberal Constitutional Party will vote against it, and those from the PLI, ALN and Yatama will abstain.
When the Sandinista Front was in the opposition before coming to power in 2007, it always showed itself as a party supposedly in favor of policies to benefit the environment and against any type of privatization of water services.
“In Nicaragua there are sectors interested in water being privatized for some time, and now they appear flexible in the norm with an interest in how to turn water services into a business. They are opening the doors to the privatization of water and sewage. This I am denouncing without mincing any words,” said Herrera to La Prensa.
They changed eight key concepts
According to the analysis of the reform of the Water Law, the expert identified that the basis for the privatization of the service are the changes in eight concepts of Article 12. One of the most important ones is the “licenses for use and operations”, in which it was added that “ANA exceptionally will be able to grant licenses”, to “private economic agents, after compliance with legal requirements, who will remain subject to their regulation.”
“This is the door to privatization”, stated Herrera, based on the fact that this paragraph did not exist in the original Law, because when it was written they ensured that potable water services were an exclusive obligation of the State.
ANA now with these powers as the regulating entity will no longer request that ENACAL determine the viability of the projects of supply for localities, but that institution will decide them on their own discretion. In addition, according to the expert, gaps remain by not specifying what the requirements will be that private economic agents must meet in order to obtain operating licenses.
This would be the mechanism to take away from ENACAL the responsibility for implementing potable water services in a segmented manner, in other words, that in some provinces or municipalities it would be private enterprises who are responsible. This carries the risk that with this the water bill for consumers would increase, given that the private concessionary would charge an additional cost.
The PLC Deputy, Melba Martínez, also supported the denouncement that the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo is making the legal path easy for ANA to grant private businesspeople the operations of potable water supply service projects, and in this way reduce the responsibility of ENACAL, the entity that is facing a financial deficit.
“This reform of the General Law of National Water has very serious implications. On one hand, it opens the doors to more corruption with concessions to private entities in water as well as in sewage. In addition, it cripples citizen participation in the conservation of water basins, new charges are being established and they are putting together a strange structure with broad powers. On the other hand, it greatly reduces the range of the population that can receive social support for having access to water, “stated Martínez.
They are centralizing everything in ANA
The regime ordered the disappearance of the Nicaraguan Institute of Aqueducts and Sewage (INAA) and transferred all the regulation of the sector to the National Water Authority (ANA). In addition, it will create two super commissions that will centralize decisions, given that only state institutions will participate.
They will be the Commission for the Sustainable Administration of Water Resources, responsible for “decentralized management and operations”, and which will propose to the National Council for the Development of Water Resources the establishment of basic organizations that may be needed.”
With the approved reform, Law 626 will be repealed, which was created to ensure the sustainable development of the Cocibolca Lake and the Río San Juan. This, Herrera stated, is because those controls got in the way of granting concessions to private individuals.
“They are eliminating laws, institutions and regulations, everything that is opposed to the concessions that they are interested in giving along the way, with the supposed objective of modernization of the management,” said Herrera, who was a promoter of the original Water Law.
58 articles of the Law were reformed. According to Herrera, this involves a total transformation of the system that did away with the participation that communities had, through the Basin Committees, producer associations and other civil territorial organizations, to have an influence on the projects that the service requires, but in addition they will limit several benefits that up to now the majority of the population had through subsidies to the water rate.
“There is a political decision behind wanting to show that it is a minor reform, when the entire Law is being transformed. Violating the essential principle that the water service is the responsibility of the State, which is obligated to supply water in sufficient quantity and quality to all citizens, and the same is happening with sewage services,” stated Herrera.
They are hiding studies that supposedly justify the reform
In the statement of reasons, the dictator Ortega alleged that the changes in the Law are based on studies validated by the World Bank, nevertheless, those documents were not shared with the proposal, nor have they been made public by INAA or the multilateral organization.
The Environmental Commission is presided by the Orteguista Arling Alonso, who only accepted in the consultation about the reform delegates from the Presidency, MARENA, ANA, ENACAL, INETER, FISE and INIFOM.
“Clearly it is a very serious step backwards in the right of access to potable water. It is an issue that should be given special attention and that concerns all the citizenry in general. The Nicaraguan Institute of Aqueducts and Sewage is merged with the National Water Authority, leaving completely discretional the legal mechanisms in force for the authorization to national and international concessionaries about the use of the water basins. It is more than clear that for the regime the environmental issue is not a priority,” stated the deputy Martínez.
Subsidy will be almost impossible to obtain
The legislator Martínez and the former president of ENACAL, Herrera, agreed that the population will see the cost increased for the use of potable water due to the fact that with the reform approved of Law 620 the subsidies established are focused as “social support”.
Article 14 of the Law, subsection “l”, says that “social support”…”allow access to water resource benefitting rural communities located in dispersed and difficult to access areas”. In this way the deputies of the FSLN reduced by the stroke of a pen the type of consumers who will receive the tariff subsidy in the potable water bill.
“They exclude users in the urban areas, it means that there will be no support for urban settlements. But, in addition, they limit the type of population that will be able to receive social support, they will have to live in rural and difficult to access areas,” denounced Herrera.