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by Rajindra de S. Ariyabandu

Gathering to collect one of the most precious of natural resources

In spite of having over 50 legislative enactments and 40 institutions dealing with the subject of water, there is no single piece of legislation to rationally manage and allocate water resources in Sri Lanka. With abundance of water, there was no great need for Sri Lanka to manage water use.

However, this presumption is fast fading away with more spatial and temporal distribution of rain and increased competition among users.

Available water for human consumption is fast deteriorating with increased demand from other water use sectors and rapid uncontrolled pollution of water resources.

While legislation exists to mitigate most of the problems related to water, they are scattered among different departments and institutions, confusing the public and diluting responsibility.

Thus, it is imperative that there should be a comprehensive water resources policy and a legislation to help the public and improve effectiveness of water resources utilization.

While all this is very well understood and accepted by the civil society, the process adopted to formulate the water policy was heavily criticized. The process began as far back as 1996.

In response to ADB funded technical assistance project on 'Institutional Assessment of Comprehensive Water Resources Management', the government of Sri Lanka decided to establish a Water Resources Council (WRC) and a technical secretariat, the Water Resources Secretariat (WRS).

Cabinet approved establishment of the two institutions in July 1995. As water is a cross cutting theme, functional responsibility of WRC and WRS was given to the National Planning Department (NPD) under the Ministry of Finance.

WRC was an advisory body consisting of number of Secretaries to line ministries dealing with the subject of water, departmental and institutional heads related to water management, academics and representatives of NGOs and farmer organisations.

WRC was considered to be the supreme body responsible for making decision on water related issues. WRS was the technical secretariat assigned to carry out duties directed by WRC.

Water Resources Secretariat was a small organization with a Director and five deputy directors seconded from relevant organizations dealing with water.

WRS was a temporary institution established to assist formulation of a National Water Resources Policy and an enabling legislation. Process of policy formulation was through a series of consultation on guidance of the Water Resources Council.

WRC was responsible for obtaining Cabinet and parliamentary approval for policy and legislation respectively. With these objectives, the two organizations worked in tandem with good understanding between them. WRS was supported by the Asian Development Bank, FAO and Government of Netherlands.

Provisions available allowed WRS to obtain the services of foreign and local consultants in the process of policy formulation. During the period from 1996 to 2000 a large number of stakeholder consultations were held to facilitate the policy formulation process.

As a result of consultations and working within the group, a draft 'National Water Resources Policy and Institutional Arrangement' was submitted to the Cabinet. On 28th March 2000, Cabinet approved the draft water policy.

This opened up one of the most contentious debates on 'management' of natural resources in Sri Lanka. The relatively debate-free and fast Cabinet approval for the water policy can be attributed to the responsibility and commitment expressed by the then Ministry of Finance.

Subsequently, the responsibility of implementing the water policy changed many times, with changes in the Cabinet, government changes and changes in functions among Ministers.

The sequence of responsibility changed from the Ministry of Finance, to Ministry of Water Resources Management, Ministry of Irrigation and Water Management, Ministry of Water Management, Ministry of Policy Development and Implementation, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Lands and Irrigation, Ministry of River Basin Development, Mahaweli Development and Rajarata Development and finally, Presidential Task Force.

One could well imagine the fate of this policy with a multitude of ministries responsible within a short period of four years. Quick succession of Ministries with a varying bureaucracy delayed the process of policy implementation. Rapid turn over of Ministries created two conditions.

Firstly, it gave no time for the bureaucracy to understand the contents and implications of implementing the water policy and secondly, it gave no 'ownership' to the policy.

Therefore, the bureaucracy was ill prepared to defend policy contents in front of a better informed and a knowledgeable public. Situation was further aggravated by the political hierarchy. They did not allow the professionals to defend some of the issues raised by the public.

Politicians always feared that any form of explanation on water policy would be detrimental to their political existence. As a result most revisions and discussions were held behind close doors without much civil society participation.

Recent attempt by the Government to obtain approval for the revised water policy is a case in point. A similar process was followed in submitting the 'Water Services Reforms bill' to the Parliament without any public debate. Results again were the same; Supreme Court rejected the Bill and referred back for further consultation.

These are lessons we should learn from history. Formulation of policy or legislation for an over sensitized issue like water should be more open and transparent.

Though the role of Water Resources Council (WRC) was advisory, it functioned more like a consultation forum. The initial interest and momentum of WRC was lost when the policy formulation process was slow in meeting desired results.

WRC meetings became irregular and key members opted out of participation. Weakening of WRC gave more responsibility to Water Resources Secretariat. In my opinion this was one of the cardinal mistakes in the policy formulation process.

Being unable to conceptualize the policy formulation process and role of institutions, Water Resources Secretariat (WRS) was allowed to take leadership by default. Created as a technical secretariat to WRC, Water Resource Secretariat did not have the mandate or authority to decide on formulation of policy and legislation.

However, due to the political vacuum, WRS had to take the leadership to meet donor covenants.

This situation was further complicated in 2001, when a decision was taken to recruit additional professional staff including a Director General and Directors to manage the 'Water Resources Management Project' (WRMP) through the Water Resources Secretariat. (ADB agreed to provide technical assistance for capacity building through WRMP).

A significant mistake at this stage was to impose upon an "Interim National Water Resources Authority" to co-exist with WRS. In my opinion this arrangement was made to legitimize recruitments of professional and project staff.

The Cabinet emorandum dated 13th December 2000, clearly mentions that WRMP will be implemented through the Water Resources Secretariat/National Water Resources Authority (NWRA). Memorandum also states that Water Resources Secretariat will be replaced by NWRA by December 2001.

There was no mention to an 'Interim Authority' and ADB support was for capacity building of NWRA and partner organization staff in water resources management.

However, in the absence of any clear conceptual thinking, the WRS continued to be maintained with additional professional and managerial staff. In the process of operation from 2001 to date, WRS has been the key player in policy formulation and preparation of draft legislation.

Over the same period from 2001 to 2004, there had been three governments with different interests on water resources management. While some politicians and bureaucracy disowned the policy others opted to make use of it to build their own empires.

Both these approaches did not favour smooth process of policy formulation. WRS remained the only organization with continuity in the policy formulation process.

Hence, WRS functioned as the 'owner' of the National Water Resources Policy as well as the 'Secretariat' to various committees and political directions. This dual role did not favour sustainability of WRS or the policy formulation process.

WRS had to 'produce' number of 'draft policies' and 'bills' to satisfy political interests. As at present one could count upto 20 drafts of the water policy and over 8 drafts of the Water Resources Bill.

This adds to the confusion of public and media alike. If one had been following the current debate on the revised water 'policy', there is a confusion among some key ministers, who refer to the current draft policy as the draft Bill.

On the other hand, media itself is referring to many different 'drafts' of the policy (both Sinhala and English). Issue becomes more complicated as there seems to be copies of the Sinhala policy, which do not coincide with the English version of the draft. All this indicate a lack of conceptualization and professionalism in the policy formulation process.

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