Metito, the international desalination, water, and wastewater treatment specialist, made a strong case for greater private sector involvement in the water sector, at a Public Private Partnership (PPP) conference in Dubai.

Its executive director, Rami Ghandour, said that while historically governments had held monopolies on supplying water and treating wastewater in the Gulf and Middle East, many government utilities across the region were not able to install capacity fast enough to cope with growth.
“Government monopolies are often overstaffed, have high water losses in their networks, and have not always completed full environmental impact assessments.  By privatising utilities, the government can better ensure capacity is installed in time, operated at a lower cost and in an environmentally friendly manner.”
He recalled that the World Bank had strongly suggested that governments should give more space for private companies to manage public utilities. “We encourage the governments of the Middle East to spend time now to forward plans for such socially responsible actions,” Ghandour said.
Ghandour presented the three largest privatised water utilities in the world - Jakarta, Manila and Buenos Aires - and extrapolated the lessons learnt as applicable to the Gulf and Middle East.
“As a result of World Bank and World Trade Organisation pressure, the economies of the region are opening up to private sector participation. We are on the verge of a great wave of privatisation across the Gulf and Middle East.  Metito has played a key role in developing public private partnerships in areas as diverse as Abu Dhabi and Sharm el Sheikh, and is looking forward to this exciting concept spreading across the region,” said Ghandour.  
Ghandour said public-private partnership had been successfully implemented to initiate and finance project development in many parts of the world. In the Middle East the potential for PPP development was unlimited. Public-private partnerships created jobs in the private sector, provided quality services and facilities for citizens and stakeholders, and lifted much of the burden of development from the already overloaded shoulders of the public sector.
He called for understanding the full potential of public-private partnership for developing infrastructure, upgrading services and expertise, creating jobs and promoting inward investment interaction with leading PPP experts.