A/HRC/36/45/Add.1 68. In Portugal, it is legal to disconnect water services if adequate procedures are followed. In the case of disconnection due to late payment, the service provider must inform the user in writing at least 20 days prior to the scheduled disconnection date. 27 In the prior written notice, in addition to justifying the reason for the suspension of services, the provider must inform the users of the means at their disposal to avoid disconnection (Law No. 23/96, art. 5). When the service has been suspended due to non-payment, several water providers offer options for debt settlements, including payment by instalments. 69. According to analysis carried out by the Water and Waste Services Regulation Authority, the great majority of disconnections are not the result of unaffordable bills, but other factors, such as users moving to another address and failing to cancel the service, or forgetting to pay, making disconnection legally appropriate. A pilot study conducted by the Water and Waste Services Regulation Authority in 2015 involving the municipalities of Loures, Mafra and Odivelas aimed at understanding more about disconnections and the reasons for late payments, taking into consideration the specific legal, economic, social and technical conditions in each context. According to the study, the main reasons were not linked to the affordability or otherwise of the water bills. 70. Nonetheless, the Special Rapporteur notes that in several areas, particularly in informal Roma settlements, there have been cases of disconnection of water services in the past. Given the lack of clarity about the real reasons for disconnection, the Special Rapporteur recommends that the Government conduct official studies and surveys into the reasons for non-payment, with a view to identifying the households that are financially incapable of paying for their water and sanitation services. Furthermore, the Special Rapporteur urges Portugal to establish legal procedures to prohibit disconnection of water and sanitation services due to economic inability to pay. D. Maximum availability of resources 71. The human rights to water and sanitation must be realized progressively, using the maximum available resources. That means that Portugal needs to make specific budget allocations for water, sanitation and hygiene, including menstrual hygiene management. Often forgotten in the human rights to water and sanitation is the cost of construction and maintenance of onsite sanitation and hygiene promotion, including menstrual hygiene management in schools and other public institutions. According to the information received from the Government, in 2015 approximately $25.9 million was available for water abstraction and distribution and $33.9 million for collection and treatment of wastewater. 72. In Portugal, the issue of ageing infrastructure is addressed in Decree-Law No. 194/2009, which obliges water services operators serving more than 30,000 inhabitants to maintain a programme for infrastructure asset management. Furthermore, the Water and Waste Services Regulation Authority recently adapted its index for measuring the implementation of strategic asset management by water and wastewater services operators with a view to better assessing how operators are dealing with ageing infrastructure. 28 Access to public funding, namely, funding from the European Union, depends on a regulatory assessment based on indicators that give high priority to infrastructure rehabilitation.29 73. In a decentralized structure such as the water and sanitation sector in Portugal, it is critical that the budget allocation to local authorities allows them to provide the support necessary to sustain the maintenance of water and sanitation infrastructure and to help those who cannot afford water and sanitation services. The Special Rapporteur recommends that 27 28 29 16 The mandatory number of days between giving the user written notification and service interruption increased from 10 days in 2008 (Law No. 12/2008) to 20 days in 2013 (Law No. 10/2013). See “Guia técnico 21: Desenvolvimento e implementação de processos de gestão patrimonial de infraestruturas”, ERSAR, Lisboa. Available from www.ersar.pt/pt/publicacoes/publicacoestecnicas/guias. See www.apambiente.pt/_zdata/Politicas/Agua/PlaneamentoeGestao/ PENSAAR2020/PENSAAR2020_Relatorio_Vol2.pdf, p. 37.