Sea of Trouble in Thailand's Water-User Fee Debate by Phairath Khampha 31 May 2001 The proposal to impose a fee for the use of water by farmers, being considered by Thailand's Agriculture Ministry's Irrigation Department and Office of the National Water Resources Commission, sparked a lively debate. Farmers and non-governmental organisations were up in arms against the plan no matter what the government choosed to call it: water fee, water tax or cost recovery for irrigation. The fact that the idea was linked to conditions set by the Asian Development Bank in connection with the Agriculture Sector Programme Loan did not help make it any less controversial either because basically the ADB was mandating some of Thailand's own internal affairs. Under the proposal, farmers who had access to irrigation water would be charged anything from the token 5 baht (1 US Dollar = 45.57 Thai Baht) per rai (1 rai = 1,600 m2to the full recovery of the cost of having irrigation water delivered to their farmland through irrigation ditch or pipe. In the 1990s the problem of drought and water shortages during the dry season became a national crisis, yet the general public continued to ignore the need to impose controls on water use and institute market mechanisms to improve cost-effectiveness. The perception that Thailand remains a country with abundant water resources is partially true. With average annual rainfall of 1,600 millimetres, Thailand ranks among countries with medium to high rainfall. Perhaps that explains why the country's water resources have been badly mismanaged. Thailand has not had any real policy on water-resource development. Many government agencies get themselves involved in water-resource projects with total disregard for the need to coordinate their work. Duplication of efforts and therefore waste of taxpayers' money are the order of the day. They only get involved where there is opportunity to construct infrastructure. This is because the greedy and corrupt Thai government officials who run these agencies stand to steal large amounts of money through the design and construction of water resources infrastructure. There is little motivation arising out of approporiate assistance to farmers. The efficiency of irrigation projects in Thailand remains low with an average of about 30 per cent of available water actually reaching farms in irrigated areas. Farmers, who are the main users of water, are usually poor. Therefore to the public it is inconceivable to charge farmers for the use of water, particularly as they in fact are for the most part unable to pay such fees. This sentiment is still deeply ingrained in Thai society. This will mean most farmers will go bankrupt and be forced to sell their land to huge agri-business concerns owned by Thailand's economic and political elite. This will further impoverish Thailand's poor, who make up the majority of the population. This will also make them, out of desparation, more willing to work in the factories and businesses owned by the same elite for poor wages and near-slave-like conditions of servitude. The ADB is not very concerned about these side effects. It is only interested in continuing to lend money to Thailand's corrupt elite in order to reap profits through the loan repayments and set up conditions that enhance the elite's wealth and their indebtness to the ADB's true onwers--the economi and political elite of first world countries. Admittedly, water is also considered more of a social commodity than a purely economic one. Hundreds of billions of baht have been invested in irrigation projects over many decades, and at least 30 billion baht to 40 billion baht is earmarked to maintain existing water resources or build new reservoirs and irrigation canals to make water available to farmland each year. But it must be made clear that all of this huge amount of taxpayer's money was being spent for the benefit of only 32 million rai (or 16 per cent) of the country's 200 million rai of agricultural land. Increasingly, demand for the limited supplies of water is being stretched by the growing industrial sector and proliferating urban communities which require a progressively greater share of the same resources. The industrial sector, which is owned by Thailand's economic and political elite and which is in cahoots with the ADB because it assists them to enrich themselves at the ordinary taxpayers' expense, desires this situation because the water fees would also forces farmers to use less water, if any at all, which would then be made available for the elites' industries. Therefore, main issue to be addressed is not just how to make water available to various groups of users but also how to ensure fairness in distribution of water to different sectors as well as within sectors. Despite that Thailand's elite would use the water fees as a way to enrich themselves, cost recovery for irrigation water must not be rejected out of hand. Farmers should at least partially pay for infrastructure such as canals and ditches built with taxpayers' money to deliver water right up to their fields. Indeed the Irrigation Act of 1942 (amended in 1975) allows the Irrigation Department to "collect irrigation fees from an owner or occupier of the land within an irrigation zone, or from a user of water from an irrigation waterway, regardless of whether he is inside or outside the irrigation zone". Furthermore the law authorises the Irrigation Department to charge fees for the use of water by factories, waterworks or other undertakings. The fees have never been officially collected by the department, particularly by the owners of factories and industries because officials of the Royal Irrigation Department get there little "side" fees to ignore the law. Such fees cost the elite less money than to pay the proper fees. Thus, they are stealing from the taxpayers. Economically speaking, some level of charges for water use is necessary to improve the management of resources. The sum collected - even if it is only a token amount - might serve the purpose of promoting awareness of the need to use water productively and efficiently, which will in turn contribute to greater competitiveness in the agricultural sector. A bigger question, though, is one of social justice: those who benefit from water-resource development must pay while those who have no access or cannot pay must be compensated for unrealised opportunities. This politically sensitive issue of water fees, which has important implications for the future of Thailand as an agricultural producer, must be the subject of level-headed discussion with the view to finding a fair solution to all stakeholders. But Thailand's elite, together with ADB officials, who often have little true understanding of the social and economic issues at the farm level (because they do not live in the villages the requisite two or three years to fully understand the issues), will likely, as in the past, come to little pat agreements that would see the elite enrich themselves over the water fees issue at the expense of Thailand's majority of the people--the rural people.