Despite the government establishing in 2023 that there is a need for the state to monitor municipalities' work on maintenance and renewal of water and sewage networks, no authority has been given the responsibility. Moreover, only a few of the country's county administrative boards conduct planned supervision, notes the Swedish National Audit Office.
"Here, the state's work needs to be improved," says Auditor General Christina Gellerbrant Hagberg in a press release.
Clean water and functioning wastewater management are a prerequisite for human health and various social functions, she emphasizes.
Astonishing shortcomings
Pär Dalhielm, CEO of Svenskt Vatten, fully agrees with the Swedish National Audit Office's criticism. It is in line with what the industry has been saying for several years.
The lack of national and political leadership that the Swedish National Audit Office points out is astonishing, considering the strategic importance of water supply for welfare development and emergency preparedness, as well as for business development and ordinary citizens.
Pär Dalhielm highlights the water emergency preparedness inquiry, which submitted its final report in December, and which he believes has several good proposals for addressing the shortcomings pointed out by the Swedish National Audit Office.
It is essential for the government to take the inquiry seriously and ensure that it leads to a proposal and concrete measures.
How to finance
Something he misses in both the Swedish National Audit Office's report and the water emergency preparedness inquiry is the question of how to finance the maintenance and expansion of the water and sewage network.
Water and sewage fees will, of course, be a significant part, but enormous amounts need to be borrowed, and enormous interest rate risks are involved.
Pär Dalhielm says that the investment need in Swedish infrastructure is estimated to be SEK 560 billion until 2040.
And that we annually, and have done for several years now, underinvest by SEK 10 billion.
This makes us really concerned. Infrastructure, energy systems, railways, or roads, you can neglect them for quite a long time before real problems arise, but they take an incredibly long time to fix.
For water networks, he sees that the problems will come gradually, and already now, one can see tendencies such as local operational disruptions or detailed plans being put on hold due to lack of water capacity.
When you start noticing operational disruptions and businesses cannot expand, it's simply too late.
Assign the relevant authorities to deepen their cooperation on issues related to public water services and the Water Services Act.
Assign a suitable authority to guide and follow up on municipalities' work with water services plans, with the aim of ensuring that the intentions behind them are realized.
Follow up on county administrative boards' supervision and take initiatives to ensure that supervision covers the municipalities' entire responsibility.
Consider initiating a process to ensure that county administrative boards are given the powers they need for supervision, in order to enable more effective supervision.
Source: The Swedish National Audit Office
