water charges collected cannot be easily used because of a rather cumbersome and lengthy bureaucracy in the tendering procedures of public agencies users who pay charges as a contribution to improve basin conditions do not always see the benefits of such charges in improving overall water outcomes in the basin which may generate a disincentive to pay water charges in the future or accept increases the approach adopted by ceara in which water is charged by a company not as a natural public resource but rather as a service provided to the user based on infrastructure management may be a way of circumventing the deadlock although very much tailored for ceara conditions and a little artificial under different circumstances box if there is a difference between the capacity needed to shoulder water responsibilities and the local authority s organisational technical procedural networking and infrastructure capacity consequences for the implementation of national water policies are unavoidable