TIRANA, Nov. 1 – On Friday, the National Water and Sewerage Agency announced that a new digital system is in the works, with aims to improve the management of assets and to enable more transparency on the investments being made towards water suppliers, including subsidies as well. Water suppliers in the country are responsible for the written periodical reports which are sent to the National Water and Sewerage Agency, but currently there is no central system which connects them together. Moreover, there is a need for displaying the total balance of assets that this sector accounts for, as well as the investments being made in the country.
The digital system is expected to cost the agency around 1.2 million euros, even though it is still in the tendering process and the real cost will be revealed only after its finalization. “This digitalization process will have a direct impact on the local units and the Water Supply and Sewerage Association regarding the functioning and maintenance of the water supply and sewerage systems. Additionally, it will have a huge impact on the improvement of capital and replacement of the state-owned water supply and sewerage system assets, due to them being very old and possibly neglected for a long time. This situation becomes more complicated if the Association has not officially signed a program for the management of its assets on the system of the objects in its ownership. The identification, registration and assessment of the Water Supply and Sewerage Association’s state of assets in local units are actions which must be taken immediately and require full attention of the Association,” reports stated.
The digital system will have four main objectives, starting with the development of a national platform for the water supply and sewerage system assets and use of this information towards the drafting of national policies and programs. The second objective aims to coordinate the efforts between institutions at the central and local level to improve the monitoring of investments in the sector and the planning as a whole, while the third objective focuses on the control and monitoring of projects which are funded by the state budget or donors in the area of water supply and sewerage. Finally, the fourth objective involves the programming of investments for the sector, based on the priorities stated in the Masterplan as well as the projects submitted to the National Water and Sewerage Agency.
