 Most service providers barely recover operation and maintenance costs and have no capacity to self-finance investments.While private operators were able to achieve higher levels of cost recovery, since the Argentine financial crisis in 2002 tariffs have been frozen and the self-financing capacity of utilities has disappeared.Roughly two-thirds of provincial water and sanitation spending since 2002 has come from general transfers from the federal government, the remainder coming from various national programs directed specifically to the sector.