A Sourcebook - UN-Water

Box 6.2 Crisis Response Creates a Military Water Mafia in a Pakistani City
In 1999 a dam serving one of Pakistan’s largest cities went dry. The Government did not have contingencies in place
to deal with this situation, which developed into a serious water shortage. Many localities were left without a water
supply.
This crisis prompted the Government to request an elite military unit (one of the most efficient local organizations),
to distribute water via tankers in affected areas. The unit took on the responsibility for filling the tankers from nine hydrants
supplied by the local Water and Sewerage Board (the Board), and distributing this water to all urban areas unable
to receive service through the Board’s piped network.
Since 1999, tanker operations have expanded rapidly, despite the fact that the Government was able to restore the
piped water supply. The military unit concerned has contracted private operators to run the tankers, and the number
of total tanker trips has steadily increased from approximately 1,300–1,400 trips per day to over 13,000.
The unit does not pay for the water it distributes. It justifies this by claiming that the tankers are supplying water to poor
people. However, there is no monitoring in place to confirm these claims—anecdotal evidence suggests most of the
water in fact goes to wealthy users, who in turn pay high prices. The tanker operators and the military unit (or its members)
are returning a healthy profit.
Given this difference in costs, most people would prefer to have a piped connection from the Board. However, the
Board has been unable to make the investments needed to extend its network. The tankers take water from the
Board at no charge, with the result that the Board has insufficient revenue to fund service extensions. Thus the need
for the tankers continues.
A new mayor of the city realized that the members of the military unit were being enriched through the tanker system,
at the expense of both the Board and the people the utility should be serving. Accordingly, he proposed that
control of the tankers be transferred to the councils of each of the “towns” comprising the municipality. Under the
new arrangement, the number of hydrants would be limited, and tankers would be better regulated and would have
to pay for water taken from the piped system. However, this new plan has yet to be implemented—evidently, there
are strong incentives for the current arrangements to stay in place, despite ongoing water supply problems for city’s
inhabitants.
Source: Castalia interviews and fieldwork during work on a water sector reform project.
• Identify feasible technical options for meeting that demand
• Undertake financial and economic evaluations of each option, to determine which combination
of projects can meet projected demand at least cost.
Are capital projects being selected in line with the Master Plan?
If a Master Plan exists, and was developed properly by people with appropriate expertise, then the
projects identified in that plan should meet demand for water services at least cost and so should be
implemented. If sector decision makers choose other projects, instead of those in the Master Plan, this
warrants further scrutiny.
Are the selected projects least cost?
Even if there is a Master Plan, it may not comprise the least cost combination of projects. As Sections
6.1.1 and 6.1.2 indicate, corruption in planning capital projects tends to lead to project selection that
• Favors new build projects over rehabilitation (see Box 8.2 on page 73)
• Favors a particular technology, site, or scale.
Typical indicators of project selection that is not least cost would include:
• High non revenue water figures, where sector decision makers give high priority to new build
opportunities. This imbalance is likely to be due to inefficiency, but may also suggest corruption
• Asset rehabilitation cycles that are not in line with the economic lives of the assets. Failure to
maintain assets suggests poor management or insufficient resources (or both). In some cases,
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