Sanitation: end of the 25% limit for contracting PPPs is seen as a positive point by private operators

“Private sanitation operators consider the end of the 25% limit for contracting Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) a step forward.” This is what the executive director of the Association of Private Sanitation Operators (ABCON SINDCON), Percy Soares Neto, considers. The measure is part of a set of initiatives provided for in new decrees for the sanitation sector in the country, which were edited on Wednesday (5) by the President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

In a note, the director highlighted that the measure creates one more option for investment in favor of universal sanitation in Brazil. “In this way, public and private companies have one more option to make the investments necessary for the sector viable.”

Regarding the other topics of the decrees, ABCON SINDCON reported that it is analyzing the format adopted for the regularizations, “bearing in mind that – whatever the options – legal certainty will be fundamental.”

Luana Pretto, executive president of the Trata Brasil Institute, believes that the end of the 25% limit for contracting PPPs in the sector will contribute to the evolution of water supply and sewage collection and treatment services offered to the population.

“This, in a way, is good for the universalization of the service, because it brings one more option for governors or even mayors in relation to the solution for basic sanitation in their region”, he completes.

Regionalized provision

Another adjustment foreseen in the new decrees was the so-called regionalized provision, since the Law requires that, in order to have access to federal funds, services must be provided in a regionalized manner, serving more than one municipality and with the new rules, the deadline for regionalization until December 31, 2025.

The new deadline guarantees the states the necessary time to properly structure the regionalized offer in the territories, as provided for in the new legal framework, without compromising investments in the transition period to the new provision model.

According to the government, the adjustments brought about by the new decrees will allow 1,113 municipalities to once again access basic sanitation resources from the federal government so that they can meet the universalization target.

Under current rules, these 1,113 municipalities, which have 29.8 million inhabitants, had their contracts with state providers declared irregular and, therefore, could not count on federal funds to seek universalization.

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