The municipalities with the best sanitation rates and access to drinking water invest almost three times more in the sector than those with the worst indicators, according to a ranking made annually by Instituto Trata Brasil and released this Tuesday (22).
While the 20 cities at the top of the list spend an annual average of R$ 135.24 per inhabitant, the 20 cities at the bottom of the survey spend only R$ 48.90. In total values, this is equivalent to R$ 17 billion in the first group and R$ 3.8 billion in the second in five years.
The data are from 2020, the most recent, taken from the Snis (National Sanitation Information System) of the Ministry of Regional Development. Based on 12 indicators, the institute creates a score only for the 100 most populous Brazilian municipalities.
It is important to point out that these places are generally the ones that receive the most investments and the ones that sustain the best indices. The share of the population with sewage collection in this group reaches 76%, for example, while in Brazil as a whole it is only 55%.
Still, there is a chasm between them, who have more complex problems. This abyss is clear mainly in people with collection (96% in the 20 best and 32% in the worst) and in the volume of treated sewage (81% in the best and 25% in the worst).
“There is a very large tendency of stagnation. The cities that occupied the best and the worst positions remained there”, says Luana Siewert Pretto, executive president of Trata Brasil. “Investments are still very low.”
She points out that 14 of the 20 municipalities at the top of the list are concentrated in the states of São Paulo and Paraná, with the first positions being occupied by Santos (SP), Uberlândia (MG), São José dos Pinhais (SP), São Paulo and France (SP).
Meanwhile, 8 of the 20 worst are in the North, with the lowest ranked being Macapá (AP), Porto Velho (RO), Santarém (PA), Rio Branco (AC) and Belém (PA). Northeastern capitals and cities in the Baixada Fluminense also stand out negatively.
“Historically, the North has never had public policies with guaranteed investments for basic sanitation. The objective is for every municipality to have a plan, with goals to be met by concessionaires and supervised by regulatory agencies. Maybe these places don’t have that”, says Pretto.
As it considers data from two years ago, the survey still does not reflect possible improvements after the so-called legal framework for sanitation. In future reports, the institute says it expects some of these rates to rise considerably.
Approved in July 2020, the legislation started to encourage the participation of private companies and defined 2033 as a goal for its universalization – that is, providing water to 99% of the population and sewage collection and treatment for 90%.
The report mentions that in 2021, therefore, “there was a change in behavior on the part of Brazilian states and municipalities”, causing the country to move BRL 42.2 billion in service auctions in various locations.
On March 31st, the regulatory agencies of the states must express their opinion on the economic-financial capacity of the companies that won the bids. One of the intermediate goals of the new law is for them to prove that they are in a position to provide the services.
In previous years, data from Trata Brasil pointed to a relative drop in spending. One of the indexes shows that the average of investments in the sector on the collection of municipalities fell from 21.5%, in 2018, to 21%, in 2019, and to 19.8%, in 2020.
This means that more than two thirds of cities (69) invest less than 30% of the amount they collect in sanitation, and only 8 disburse more than 60%. The number considers the amount spent by both the concessionaires and the government.
“Today we invest BRL 13 billion a year [somando o paÃs todo]. We need to reach R$ 40 billion”, says the president of the institute, citing estimates made by Abcon Sindcon (Association and National Union of Private Concessionaires of Public Water and Sewage Services).
Low coverage has consequences that affect cities in many ways. An annual survey of sheet showed at the end of last year, for example, that Brazil has not been able to make progress in cleaning its coastline.
The volume of beaches considered good (37%), that is, suitable for swimming throughout the year, was the same as that recorded in 2016, the first year of data collection. They also parked the places classified as regular (25%) and bad (9%).
The impacts range from the health of the population, with diseases transmitted by water, to the environment, tourism and employability. “When you have sanitation, you create a whole environment conducive to people to thrive,” says Pretto.
