Colombia

Private sector participation in the provision of water and sanitation services in Colombia has its origin in the 1991 Constitution that authorized the government to delegate the provision of public services to private sector providers while retaining responsibility for regulation, supervision and control, and in the enactment of Law 142 of 1994, the Public Utilities Law of Colombia, which regulated the procurement of public services by the private sector. The first private sector participation (PSP) experience in the water industry involving delegation of service provision occurred in 1994, with the award of a management contract to Aguas de Barcelona in the city of Cartagena, although minority private share ownership had already been introduced earlier in the cities of Barranquilla, Florencia and Montería. During the first decade of the current century, PSP in the Colombian water sector has expanded significantly, with the award of at least 19 additional contracts in other localities. There is a wide diversity in scope of these experiences, ranging from management contracts to outright concessions that involve investment commitments. In 2006, close to 10 per cent of the water supply companies in Colombia were either in private hands or in those of mixed private-public ownership. This figure, however, understates the real extent of PSP in water in Colombia since the private sector is less involved in the operation of companies in smaller localities. Thus, as a share of population supplied, the importance of the private sector is larger than 10 per cent (19 per cent by some sources — Owen 2006). This shows that the private sector is an important and growing agent in the Colombian water sector.