Privatisation of state companies or departments is not new. There is an ongoing global process throughout developed and developing countries to minimise the role of government in both the economy and society. We often assume privatisation to be one-way: the private sector (in the form of corporations) takes over the space that results when the public sector (often in the form of a state apparatus) recedes. This model ignores that the division between the public and private is often blurred and porous.

Officials in the public sector not only pursue their own private interests – termed corruption – but also, are constantly interacting, in their public roles, with the private sector. A government department regularly contracts companies to provide services, to procure resources (specifically machinery and equipment) and to take over operations. The public and private sectors in this way are fundamentally linked.

The SWM was a municipal department falling under the jurisdiction of the City District Government of Lahore (CDGL) and its operations were devolved to the town level. The SWM, which received public funds to carry out the municipal service of solid waste management within the limits of Lahore’s Town Municipal Administration, was perceived as a failing municipal department by bureaucrats and technocrats alike.

Its administration had little formal managerial skills and its operation lacked the requisite expertise knowledge, while it needed greater financial, labour and technological resources. In this case, the public sector was not managing the waste problem in Lahore but seemed to be contributing to it.

It was not only the local actors that perceived the public sector as part of the problem. In 2007, the Korea International Cooperation Agency and World Bank carried out a joint study of Solid Waste Management in Punjab. This extensive study will make anyone understand the enormity of the waste problem that exists throughout Pakistan. Its suggestions to resolve, or at least start to resolve this problem are several and multipronged. It was clear that the institutional, financial, labour and technological deficiencies could only be resolved through a massive intervention and reorganisation of the SWM department.

A few ideas were floated around: an influx of financial and technological assets to the CDGL and SWM, a Project Management Unit (PMU) to assist the SWM in technical and administrative capacities, or giving over the SWM to foreign contractors. All of these were deemed insufficient for a variety of reasons, though the final option would have an afterlife.

It was within this context, of concerned local actors and international agencies, that the Lahore Waste Management Company was formed. A focal local actor in the LWMC’s formation was the Urban Unit. This organisation was set up as a Project Management Unit (PMU) of the Planning and Development Department, Government of Punjab, in 2006 – right around the time of the publishing of joint report mentioned above. The Urban Unit provided technical assistance and expertise knowledge in making the LWMC. Knowledgeable experts at the Urban Unit designed the LWMC, from its organisational structure and its own legal designation. In fact, these experts would eventually become the initial employees of the LWMC.

Yet, the question remains: has the reorganisation of the SWM as a public entity lived up to the promises of privatisation? The LWMC is registered as a not-for-profit company under section 42 of the Companies Act, meaning that profit must be reinvested into the LWMC itself and not distributed among the Board of Directors. Moreover, it remains publicly funded. The LWMC receives the SWM’s annual budget from the CDGL in addition to a grant-in-aid from the Punjab government. This allotment has more than doubled the financial resources available to the LWMC. Similar to the Lahore Development Authority, the LWMC is semi-autonomous body. It remains publically funded and officials at the LWMC are in close and continuous contact with the CDGL. This is not to mention the fact that the previous SWM still exists, participates in field operations and takes care of pensions and retirement of sanitation workers.

The privatisation has occurred on the level of operations. Two Turkish companies – OzPak and AlBayrak – have been given contracts to carry out the operations of solid waste management. These private firms have come to occupy the space created by the receding public sector. But has the public sector really receded in this case?

It is hard to say that the SWM has been privatised in the usual sense of the term. The SWM as a municipal department continues to play a large role while the LWMC, a publically funded not-for-profit company that is considered a semi-autonomous body of the CDGL and receives increased financial support from the Punjab government, still oversees the solid waste management system by monitoring the private companies.

The LWMC has increased the sanitation workforce by several thousand and brought in a class of educated professionals to oversee the entire initiative. This does not even consider how much they have invested in technology, from Geographical Information Systems for tracking vehicles to huge numbers of smart phones for tracking attendance – all of which has transformed the very nature of sanitation work in Lahore. The public sector has not receded but expanded considerably. This expansion of the public at the same time creates a space for private companies to work, invest and generate profit. This might be a more accurate model for understanding what is usually called privatisation.

(The writer is doing PhD in Anthropology from University of California, San Diego. His research examines Lahore’s sanitaion system, focussing on labour, development and privatisation).

Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2014