Oct 9, 2020

 On this Friday the 9th, the Government of Amapá starts public consultation for the concession process of the state’s water supply and sanitation service, covering the urban areas of its 16 municipalities. The project, which will be open to contributions from this society, was structured by the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) and has investments estimated at R$ 3.1 billion over the 35 years of concession, R$ 959 million of which from the first five years. The state of Amapá expects the publication of the notice to occur in 2020. 

According to the National Sanitation Information System (Snis), currently only 38% of the urban population of the state is served with treated water. This means about 458,000 people without access to this service in these regions. In the case of sanitary exhaustion, 682,000 people are not served in urban areas, that is, only 8% of the population is served.

The concession should universalize water services in all municipalities in up to 11 years, reaching a coverage of 99% of the population in the project area. Investments of R$ 900 million in water supply will be made, which will result in a reduction in the rate of water losses from 70% to 30%, with operational and environmental gains. 

The new concessionaire should, in up to 18 years, extend the service of sewage collection and treatment to 90% of the population in the served area in each of the municipalities. Over the concession period, investments of R$ 2.2 billion in sanitation will be made. 

The project will enable improvements in the management and quality of basic sanitation services provided to the population, resulting in a series of social impacts such as decrease in infant mortality, savings with expenses with public health units and increased productivity at work through the reduction of diseases associated with lack of sanitation. Sectors such as tourism and real estate should also benefit from it indirectly. The quality and efficiency of the provision of services will be assessed via goal indicators that must be met by the concessionaire under the risk of suffering penalties.

According to the Trata Brasil Institute, almost 100 million Brazilians - 47% of the population - do not have access to wastewater collection systems, of which 13 million are children and adolescents. The Northern region has one of the most critical sanitation settings in the country: only 10.49% of the population have access to sewers and only 21.7% of sewers are treated. The North region also has the lowest rate of access to treated water in the country: only 57.05% of the region’s population is served. In Brazil, there are almost 35 million Brazilians without access to this basic service. 

In order to transform this reality of social and regional inequalities, BNDES established basic sanitation as one of the priority sectors of its agenda, determining as one of the 15 projects to be delivered to the society of the Three-Year Plan (2020-2022) the structuring of projects that expand by 20 million the number of Brazilians with access to sanitation.

BNDES and Sanitation - access to basic sanitation is vital for health, quality of life and, above all, for the dignity of people. Therefore, this matter is one of the strategic objectives of BNDES for Brazilian development.  Currently, the Bank’s portfolio already includes projects to improve the provision of water and sewage services in at least nine Brazilian states, including Alagoas, Acre, Ceará and Rio de Janeiro. The planned investments should be around R$ 50 billion, with direct benefit to more than 30 million Brazilians.

The first project to be bid was the concession of the water supply and sanitation services of the Metropolitan Region of Maceió. The bidding took place on September 30, with BRK Ambiental as the winner among six other proposing consortia. The winning group offered R$ 2.009 billion, which represented a maximum of 13,180% compared to the minimum amount stipulated for granting the service (R$ 15,125 million). BNDES will act as a project and service factory, structuring partnerships with the public sector, new investors and qualified operators to develop private solutions to public problems.

The next auction will be the PPP sanitary exhaustion of the municipality of Cariacica (ES), which will be held this month, on the 20th, and has seven competitors. The public consultation for the concession of Rio de Janeiro was held between June and August of this year and we expect the auction to take place in the coming months.

Services

Learn more about each concession project in basic sanitation for structuring by BNDES.

Learn more about deliveries in basic sanitation and other sectors established in BNDES’ Three-Year Plan.