Senators introduce bill pushing privatization in the Global South

[Guest guest]

Thu, 3 Mar 2005 17:36:01 -0500

" Sara Grusky " <sgrusky

 

 

[WATERFORALL] Senators introduce bill pushing privatization

in the Global South

 

 

 

 

Senators introduce bill pushing privatization in the Global South

 

 

 

News from Public Citizen's Water For All Campaign

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Senators Frist (R-TN) and Reid (D-NV) have introduced a bipartisan bill

that is being touted as a solution to the water crises in the

developing

world.

 

Here is the statement that we put out today. The link to the

legislation follows:

 

PUBLIC CITIZEN PRESS RELEASE

 

 

March 3, 2005 Contact: Wenonah Hauter

(202) 454-5150

Erica Hartman

(202) 454-5174

 

New Water Bill in Senate Correctly Identifies Problem,

But Offers Wrong Solution

 

Statement of Wenonah Hauter, Director of Public Citizen's Water for All

Campaign

 

A bill introduced Wednesday in the U.S. Senate, which seeks to

address the global water crisis affecting billions of people in the

developing world, has the right intent, but the wrong solution.

Disguised in " public-private partnership " lingo, the bill, S. 492,

co-sponsored by Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Bill Frist (R-Tenn.),

promotes privatization of water services as the means to alleviate the

burgeoning problems of providing safe, clean and affordable water to

the

estimated 1.1 billion people who lack access to water and the 2.4

billion people without sanitation services.

 

Governments should play a leadership role in providing water to

citizens. That responsibility cannot be delegated to private companies

that have identified water as the oil of the 21st century. Around the

world, the evidence is compelling that private water companies create

problems rather than solve them. Rather than providing safe and

affordable drinking water for the poor, multinational water companies

have increased consumer water rates, failed to extend services to poor

neighborhoods, caused public health crises, and have polluted and

contributed to creating other environmental problems.

 

Examples abound across the globe. Backed by World Bank loan

guarantees, private water companies such as Suez, RWE-Thames and Veolia

have swept into countries to take over their water systems. In Ghana,

citizens' monthly water bills skyrocketed. When 50 percent of the

population earns less than $1 a day and approximately 40 percent fall

below the national poverty line, this increase in water prices means

families must make difficult tradeoffs between food, clothing, medicine

and school fees. A 2003 study by the Ghana-based Integrated Social

Development Center showed that poor households in the capital of Accra

spend between 18 and 25 percent of their household income on water

alone. In comparison, the average American spends approximately 1

percent of household income on water bills.

 

In the United States, Atlanta cancelled its water contract in

2003 with United Water, a subsidiary of French-owned Suez, after

discovering in a series of audits that the company repeatedly

mismanaged

the system, cutting staff to dangerously low levels and charging the

city for services it never provided.

 

Most alarming are the developments in El Alto, Bolivia, where

citizens have taken to the streets in recent days to protest the

delayed

departure of Suez. Despite having their water contract terminated by

the

Bolivian government after popular protest forced the situation to the

forefront, Suez is continuing to wheel and deal its way back into a

" public-private " partnership with Bolivia. In response, citizens have

barricaded the streets, embarked on hunger strikes and are now facing

the threat of police force. This is Bolivia's second water war of the

21st century. El Alto comes on the heels of the disaster of Cochabamba,

where massive protests over high water rates forced Bechtel, the San

Francisco-based corporation that took over the water system in that

city, to exit quickly.

 

We urge the Senate to pay close attention to the battles around

the world being fought over water. They all have one thing in common:

the presence of a private company that is seeking to profit from water.

This bill will not bring justice to the global water crisis, it will

only deepen it.

 

###

 

Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization

based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit

www.citizen.org.

 

Legislative language:

 

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

 

This Act may be cited as the ``Safe Water: Currency for Peace Act

of 2005''.

 

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

 

Congress makes the following findings:

 

(1) Water-related diseases are a human tragedy, killing and

debilitating millions of people annually, preventing millions of people

from leading healthy lives, and undermining development efforts.

 

(2) Providing safe supplies of water, and sanitation and hygiene

improvements would save millions of lives by reducing the prevalence of

water-borne diseases, water-based diseases, water-privation diseases,

and water-related vector diseases.

 

[Page: S1933] GPO's PDF

(3) An estimated 1,800,000 people die of diarrhoeal diseases every

year. Ninety percent of these people are children under the age of five

who live in developing countries. Simple household and personal hygiene

measures, such as household water treatment and safe storage and

effective hand washing with soap, reduce the burden of diarrhoeal

disease by more than 40 percent.

 

(4) According to the World Health Organization, 88 percent of

diarrhoeal disease can be attributed to unsafe water supply, and

inadequate sanitation and hygiene.

 

(5) Around the world, more than 150,000,000 people are threatened

by blindness caused by trachoma, a disease that is spread through poor

hygiene and sanitation, and aggravated by inadequate water supply.

 

(6) Chronic intestinal helminth infections are a leading source of

global morbidity, including cognitive impairment and anemia for hundred

of millions of children and adults. Access to safe water and sanitation

and better hygiene practices can greatly reduce the number of these

infections.

 

(7) Schistosomiasis is a disease that affects 200,000,000 people,

20,000,000 of whom suffer serious consequences, including liver and

intestinal damage. Improved water resource management to reduce

infestation of surface water, improved sanitation and hygiene, and

deworming treatment can dramatically reduce this burden.

 

(8) In 2002, 2,600,000,000 people lacked access to improved

sanitation. In sub-Saharan Africa, only 36 percent of the population

has

access to improved sanitation. In developing countries, only 31 percent

of the population in rural areas has access to improved sanitation.

 

(9) Improved management of water resources can contribute to

comprehensive strategies for controlling mosquito populations

associated

with life-threatening vector-borne diseases in developing countries,

especially malaria, which kills more than 1,000,000 people each year,

most of whom are children.

 

(snip)

 

 

Wenonah Hauter, Public Citizen's Energy and Environment Program

215 Pennsylvania Ave. SE

Washington, DC 20003

202-454-5150

whauter

 

 

Sara Grusky

Water for All Campaign

Public Citizen

Phone: (202) 454-5133

Website: www.wateractivist.org

 

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For more information on the Water For All Campaign please visit

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