O saneamento público como um direito fundamental

Abstract

Basic sanitation in Brazil was built slowly during the twentieth century until it reached the present day, during this period the states were the most responsible for providing everyone with basic access to these resources. With the arrival of the Federal Constitution of 1988, the legal regime of water was instituted, and the municipality became the holder of the public service of water and sewage, which could operate the service directly or pass it on to a third company, either public, via a concession contract, or private, through a bidding process. With the arrival of neoliberal thinking in the country, around the 90s, and the transformation of water into a commodity, some state sanitation companies were privatized, in whole or in part, inserting private companies, especially international ones, as operators of this service. In 2007, the regulatory framework for sanitation was approved, regulating the performance of all sanitation companies, defining goals, allocating resources, and contributing to the advancement in the improvement of water and sewage services. However, as of 2016 a movement began to increase the participation of private companies in Brazilian sanitation; in 2020, law 14.026 was approved, ending program contracts and forcing municipalities to hold a bidding process. In this unstable scenario, the question arises about water as a fundamental right or as a commodity, since treating it as a source of profit can restrict the access that the poorest populations have to this resource.