#irishwater Great article about privatisation of water, and the growing wave of public take overs (remunicipalisation). Main points: - privatisation is presented as more efficient than public services, and a way to fund infrastructural investment - when water is privatised, companies prioritise shareholders/profits over customers/investment. This most commonly happens by cutting costs & raising revenue, namely sacking workers/lowering wages, raising prices, neglecting infrastructural investment, The promise of water for the poor and profits for the rich was an alluring one, soon touted by everyone from corporations to the World Bank to government aid agencies. Here at last was a magic bullet that could help expand water services to those without water in developing countries and help pay for upgrades to aging water infrastructure in developed countries. ... As a result, an astonishing 180 cities from 35 countries have, in the academic jargon, remunicipalised. And the rate is accelerating dramatically. Among them, noticeably, are several of the cities Tully and others heralded as the promising pioneers of privatization. Buenos Aires, despite the apparent wonders of its gushing, privately-financed fountains, decided in 2006 to remunicipalise its water. Revelations that the Suez-led consortium failed to make 57% of its promised investments and therefore completely missed its connections targets – leaving 800,000 people without water and more than a million without sewerage services – left the city with little option but to end its disastrous experiment. ... Atlanta, Georgia, provides an even starker case of journalists imbibing corporate marketing speak when it comes to privatized water. Tully described the city as “ingenious” for privatizing its water because it promised 50% savings for the public and double-digit growth for the private company United Water. What could possibly go wrong? A lot, as it turned out. As soon as United Water took over Atlanta’s water system in 1999, the company halved the workforce and then increased tariffs year-on-year. Water quality declined so markedly that on some occasions city residents were forced to boil their water after orange and brown liquids spewed from residential taps. Eventually, Atlanta had to hire its own inspectors to audit United Water’s work, costing the city an additional $1 million. Public anger led Mayor Shirley Franklin to cancel the contract in 2003 and return water services to city management after only four years of United Water’s 20-year contract.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 23:45:27 +0000