Scholarly record

ASPECTS RELATED TO THE RESTRUCTURING OF THE ROMANIAN WATER SECTOR OPERATORS

A. Uifalean

Abstract

After a period of more than four decades of centralized management, Romania has decided to return to local autonomy principle, in this way transferring major and concrete responsibilities to the local administration. Currently 17 municipalities, each with more than 150.000 inhabitants, have benefited from capital investment programs financed mainly by EU and IFI for rehabilitation of their water and wastewater infrastructure. In Romania, out of 263 urban localities, around 230 are considered small and medium-sized towns (population less than 150.000) that have not been able to attract financing from either the international financial institutions or private operators. As present fragmented structure for provision of municipal service are not favourable to effective management of investment resource and service provision, new governmental strategy will aim to motivate groups of towns to begin to work together in a format of Association of Municipalities and to concession their water supply system to a Regional Water Operator. The main objective of this programme is to create new Regional Water Operators having municipalities as shareholders, capable to attract financing sources to improve the service quality, to benefit from economies of scale and to ensure the rational use of water resources. The paper will present the institutional architecture established which can be used a model for the regionalisation process required by EC Directives.

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