Privatisation and the use of water meters. A disaster.
After community management appeared to have failed, during the late 1980's and early 90's, the World Bank, IMF and other Western governments pushed for neo-liberal economic policies, such as supporting financial instruments for privatised delivery. It was promoted as a means to bring efficient business regulation into water service management, however, instead it has led to a reduction in access and a dramatic rise in price across the world, in which this blog will focus on South Africa.
The World Bank advised certain governments including South Africa to decrease their grants and subsidies to local councils (Bond 2003), which meant local governments and municipalities had no choice but to turn to commercialisation and privatisation of basic services such as water (Bayliss 2013). Then, they could enter into service and management partnerships with multinational water corporations which created a source of revenue no longer provided by the state (McDonald and Smith 2004). However, a large body of literature such as Barrett and Jaichand (2007) and MacDonald and Smith (2004) suggests this deregulation has created an added barrier between people and their rights, for example the right to water. This can be noted throughout the urban level of South Africa which I will argue has experienced mass devastation from the profit-orientated policy.
In order to be as fair as possible in understanding the literature, I will refer to privatisation as "public-private partnership" (PPP) in order to avoid stigma associated with the term (Pierce 2014). Furthermore, it is important to note there are different types of private water service delivery which will not be the focus of today's blog. For instance, a few weeks ago I discussed the disparity in access to piped water in urban areas which is often supplied by private water vendors. They can be categorised as part of the PPP are may be part of the informal workforce, opposite to the international companies operating in South Africa.
In the early 2000's, Suez, a French-based utility company, signed a full cost recovery method with city governments such as KwaZulu Natal, Fort Beaufont and Queenstown. The tariff revenue matched the operations and maintenance costs which consumers were expected to pay for, without public subsidies to keep prices in check. Furthermore, a history of poor billing practices, household debt and frail communication in a post-apartheid country between local authorities and service users led to pre-paid water meters being used (McKinley 2020). This approach avoids the logistics of billing for water and instead can automatically cut off water when money is owed. Interestingly, this method had been advised by the World Bank to force payments (McKinley 2020).
A recent example is shown in the video below in Knysna, a quick 2 minute clip which summarises the disruption these methods can cause.
Figure 2, Knysna water meters, source ABCNews
One sentence from the video which really stood out for me was:
"The water consumption is not even a quarter of all of the affluent areas"
In examining the effectiveness of PPP, we must be aware of cultural geographies as a structural history and landscape remain (shown in the clip) which effect the affordability of infrastructural systems such as water.
What did PPP mean for the community?
Economic
Devastatingly unaffordable. A basic human right, gone. The township dwellers were meant to feel like second-class citizens once more as they were effectively denied a citizens right to water via the turn off method.
As discussed on the topic of community management, the question of who pays for which stage of the operation of water access is highly disputed and often agreed on behalf of the community. For instance, when Suez gained the contract for the local townships of Fort Beaufort, eastern Cape, the community paid 600% more for services than when run by local municipalities. Queenstown also saw a 150% increase. Biwater, which doesn't stray far from home, owns the lease contract in Nelspruit, north-east South Africa where unemployment looms at 40% and the price of water has increased to 69%.
Social
The cut-offs led to communities being forced to use alternatives for water which is thought to have caused a cholera outbreak in the province of Kwa-Zulu Natal in 2000 where over 120,000 were infected and over 300 died (McKinley 2020). Similarly, when Suez gained the lease contract for Johannesburg's water supply, an outbreak of cholera in the township of Alexandra affected thousands. The government later stepped in after intense community mobilisation and pressure which led to the disease becoming under control.
What did this lead to?
In Tygerberg, northern Cape Town, between 1999 and 2001, 142,922 households had their water cut off due to non-payment, with the majority living in black townships. Communities in large urban areas such as Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg and other peri-urban areas and towns responded with active resistance. An umbrella organisation for grassroots groups known as Anti-Privatisation Forum established in 2000 alongside other educational and legal initiatives. They started a campaign called 'Operation Vulamanzi meaning "water for all" which empowered people to assert their right to free basic services such as water. Some communities destroyed the pre-paid meters which Suez and governments responded by labelling as anarchists and were arrested and imprisoned. However, this caught media attention and has increased the ongoing discussion of water and sanitation provision and the unethical solutions used.
Summary
So far, I think pre-paid water meters within South Africa have been a disaster. This blog has been critical of the development institutions who's purpose is to assist in meeting the Millenium Development Goals yet have advised PPP to effectively make profit. We need to push an improved relationship between the state and people which means changing behaviours, particularly from international governing bodies.
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