Advisers sign up for Riyadh water sell-off

28 July 2006
The Water & Electricity Ministry awarded on 23 July five advisory contracts worth a total of SR 23.4 million ($6.2 million) for the privatisation of water and wastewater management in Riyadh. Germany's Fichtner, in co-operation with PricewaterhouseCoopers, was awarded a SR 5 million ($1.3 million) contract to lead the process of preparing the proposed public-private-partnership (PPP) contract for the operation and maintenance of the capital's water and wastewater services. The team will also be responsible for preparing an assets transfer plan from the General Directorate of the Riyadh region.

Ernst & Young Consulting was awarded a SR 7.8 million ($2 million) contract to provide human resources consulting services, while the local Law Firm of Yousef & Mohammed al-Jadaan with Clifford Chance was selected as legal adviser. The UK's Halcrow was appointed as technical adviser.

A fifth contract was signed with Germany's ILF Consulting Engineers to carry out a feasibility study into a 400,000-cubic-metre-a-day (cm/d) wastewater treatment plant in the capital which will be carried out on a build-own-operate basis. Tendering for the plant is expected to start next year.

The privatisation programme, which is starting in Riyadh, will be rolled out to Jeddah, Medina and Dammam in the coming months. The four cities have been selected as they account for 50 per cent of the kingdom's water consumption.

Safage and Veolia Environnement, both of France, were awarded contracts to carry out audits of the water networks of Jeddah and Riyadh last year (MEED 26:8:05).

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