Financial and operational performance indicators applied to public and private water and wastewater utilities

摘要

Purpose - The paper seeks to assess the performance of 234 public and private water andrnwastewater utilities from industrialized and developing countries.rnDesign/methodology/approach - A group of financial and operational indicators was calculatedrnfor the sample utilities.rnFindings - Some indicators calculated for the private sector, represented by US and UK water andrnwastewater utilities, demonstrated better values compared with public utilities, such as staff numberrnper 1,000 connections and return on equity ratio and tariffs charged. On the other hand, the percentagernof unaccounted-for water and the debt to equity ratio evidenced no advantage in private over publicrnutilities. Further, the performance of water and wastewater utilities of developing countries and Egyptrndoes need improvement.rnOriginality/value - A key problem in most of water and wastewater utilities is the absence ofrnperformance assessment tools. To this end, this research utilized indicators as a means of performancernassessment of water/wastewater utilities.