Water Governance in Tunisian Rural Area
There are 2500 water associations in Tunisia, half of them manage water systems network to supply rural areas with potable water, while the other manage irrigation systems network in irrigated areas.
That means, 80% of Tunisia's water resources is managed by the water associations, in other words, water associations manages a quantity of water four times more bigger than the National Water Utility (SONEDE). But the National Water Utility (SONEDE) includes thousands of engineers and technicians in various disciplines (water engineering, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, law and management ...) how ever each water association is managed by a team that includes 5 or 7 volunteers from rural areas who do not have skills directly or indirectly related to the management of water systems network.
These were the strategic vision of the Tunisian political class in the early 1990s, which provided the managing of these water associations as a gift to the loyalists of the ruling party at this time. Everyone was satisfied with the settlement, and they kept silent and calmly spread corruption within these associations. Everyone celebrated the 1990s triumphal fantasies while were squandered water resources and destroyed water networks. we only speak about the percentage of water networks connection that claim to have reached 100% in urban areas, and more than 90% in rural areas or the mobilization water resources rate which reached 95%.
The situation was completely reverse after the revolution of January 14, 2011, the corruption replaced the illusory successes and has become the media main interest. In fact , with an irregular follow-up to the daily Al-Sabah newspaper, we monitored 25 articles in 2015 related to corruption in water associations. These articles deal with corruptions in water associations along the length and width of the Tunisian country, north and south, east and west: Nabeul, Bizerte, Jendouba, Sidi Bouzid, Mahdia, Sfax, Kairouan, Kasserine and Tozeur. According to These articles, The weakness of these associations is mainly due to malpractice, lack of maintenance, lack of training for managers, poor framing, structural and legislative problems, rampant corruption, indebtedness and ultimate connection. Indebtedness and ultimate connection are the only two reasons used by the Tunisian administration to justify the failure of the water associations because they are related to the subscribers corruption to cover up the corruption of the managers. Indeed, Indebtedness and ultimate connection are an inevitable consequence of bad governance and not a reasons for bad governance, It is a deliberate mix of causes and results to camouflage and cover up corruption. As a result, rural areas not only suffer from poverty and marginalization, but also orphan, talking about development in the interior region, in the absence of solutions to provide drinking water, has nonsense, and Talking about solutions to water cuts in the near term is delirium. Despite all these problems in the water sector, competencies in the private and public sectors continue to be excluded. Decision Number 335 of 14 February 2002, which stipulates the obligation for water network diagnosis, has only been implemented in the large consumers of water for industrial and touristic use which represents only 7% of the national consummation of water, while water used for irrigation represents 80%. The non application of decree 335 -2002 on water associations affects the credibility of the national water saving program started since 2002, knowing that the hydraulic yield of networks managed by theses associations is less than 50%, according to a study published by the blue plan in 2012. Those direct losses are estimated at 250 Milliond euro per year, losses related to the decline in harvests and the deterioration of the quality of life in rural areas are not evaluated. All these negligence necessarily leads to dissociation of several associations, indeed, in the delegation of Sejnène, 7 associations has been dissociated over the past ten years. the same number was recorded at the delegation of Bouhajla in the Governorate of Kairouan. When the losses are exacerbated, it is useless to evaluate them, you have to think about how to limit them. Corruption inside water associations looks like an equilateral triangle consisting of incompetence, lack of accountability and absence of values. To destabilize this triangle we must build water association skills by:
· apply the decree 335 -2002
· create periodic trainings for engineers
· create periodic trainings for association managers.
Water associations can become the locomotive that drives development in the rural areas of Tunisia if they are better governed.