Your water, Our water? Privatisation and Remunicipalisation

 Water to drink. Water to cook. Water to wash. Basic needs every human being has every day. But what if the water is privatised? Why is water privatised at all? And what effects does privatisation have on the people?

These questions inspired me to write about the issue of water privatisation in Africa. To understand the problematic consequences of water privatisation, I wanted to find out why countries privatise their water in the first place and who owns the water in the end. Companies from all over the world promise to improve water quality, pipelines and infrastructure in countries of the Global South. In exchange, the companies have the power to control the water resources and make their own profit on it. These projects are often financed and supported by banks, such as the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), donor governments, and European and American business consortia.

Protests in Lagos/Nigeria against water privatisation (Source)

The Guardian published an article about water privatisation in Lagos, which is not only the largest city in Nigeria, but at that time with 6% increase a year, one of the fastest growing mega-cities in the world. Water supply systems could change the picture of the poor areas of the city in many ways. Only 30% of the city has access to safe water, 80% of the piped water supplies get stolen and many taps run therefore dry. Without the supply system, the poorer population of Laos has to keep buying their (unsafe) water from local water suppliers for an exaggerated price. So why do the federal or local authorities keep rejecting water supply plans from foreign companies? Obstacles exist on many levels here. It is not only the huge sums of money that need to be mobilized, but also the mistrust of Nigerian citizens who believe that international companies will perform their tasks only for their own profit, so that water prizes will be unreasonably high. And their concern is not without reason. Poor communities are often the losers of privatisation contracts, because their water gets taken from them. In some way, their human right to water is denied, which leads to an increase in environmental pollution, preventable diseases and violence against neighbours. In Sokari Ekine’s words, who is a Nigerian social justice activist and blogger: peoples dignity decreased, because they were now forced to steal each other’s water to survive. And Lagos is by far not the only city dealing with issues of water privatisation: an important example for the effects of privatisation on the population is Accra, Ghana. The water charges in the capital were supposed to increase by 300% around 2002 to reach the “market rate” necessary for privatisation. Water tariff rates were already beyond the means of most of the population in Ghana at that time, privatisation made it impossible for many people to purchase clean water. Behind this process was in large part the British government who donated money through the Department of International Development dependant of the privatisation of the local water. That shows that colonial history should not be underestimated in today’s seemingly unrelated events and changes in these countries.

Water privatisation is a subject of much debate. Many see it as the chance of improved water quality, sanitation facilities and a “more developed” water supply system. Many forget the consequences that the people concerned will face. Many see a chance to make profit. The partnerships between different countries and companies were described as a way to find “lasting and effective answers” by the former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Nevertheless, the trend of water privatisation has reversed in the last few years. More and more countries choose to take back the public water control as an effect of poor performance, under-investment, soaring water bills, lack of transparency and poor service quality. This process of deciding that the public sector is better placed to provide quality services to citizens and to promote the human right to water is known as remunicipalistation.

As Danwood Mzikenge Chirwa (Lecturer in Law at University of Cape Town) stated in the African Human Rights Law Journal: “Unless privatisation policies are structured by human rights principles, they may not result in more or progressive access to relevant basic services, especially by poor people.” This does not only apply to people living in the big cities of the Global South, but also to farmers in rural areas, who have an even higher demand for free water to sustain their livelihood.