Most major utility companies in El Salvador were state owned and operated. These included the National Water and Sewerage Administration (Administracion Nacional de Acueductos y Alcantarillados--ANDA), the National Telecommunications Administration (Administracion Nacional de Telecomunicaciones-- Antel), and the National Electric Company, known formally as the Rio Lempa Executive Hydroelectric Commission (Comision Ejecutiva Hidroelectrica del Rio Lempa--CEL). These companies, responsible for providing public services, operated fairly autonomously, even though their budgets were controlled by the Legislative Assembly. Government expenditures on economic services (including road construction and maintenance, communications facilities, and power plants and lines) declined from 29 percent of total expenditures in 1976 to only 12 percent in 1985. Spending on these services increased by 37 percent in nominal terms from US$98 million in 1976 to US$135 million in 1985 during the same period, government spending increased by 31 percent, from US$334 million to US$1.1 billion. In 1978 about 70 percent of these service-oriented expenditures went for the building and maintenance of roads, communications facilities, and power plants and lines. This share declined to 53 percent in 1986, largely because of increased spending on services to the agriculture sector and the fishing industry.

Data as of November 1988