[DEBATE] : (Fwd) Jeff Rudin on free basic water

[Patrick Bond]

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Jeff Rudin [mailto:jeffrey.rudin at samwu.org.za]
> *Sent:* 10 July 2007 08:53 AM
> **
>
> The attached is an article from the May issue of 'Water -- Sewage & 
> Effluent' that I was asked to write as part of a 'Debate Section' 
> being promoted by the journal. 
>
> The article might be of some general value for the Water Caucus.  
> Please distribute, If you agree.
>
> Jeff
>
>  
>
> Our government is proud to proclaim that 'water is life; sanitation is 
> dignity'.  Their practice, however, gives the lie to both claims.  The 
> commercialisation of water and sanitation is at the heart of our 
> government's policies.  This means a practice driven by imperatives 
> far removed from the lofty sentiments of life and dignity.
> The 'user pays' principle in a country in which the majority are 
> officially recognised as being poor can have only one consequence:  
> water and sanitation remain unaffordable to a very large number of our 
> people.
> Our government recognises this problem.  Their remedy in 2000 was to 
> make a basic amount of water free to everyone.  There are three 
> fundamental difficulties with what might otherwise appear to be a most 
> enlightened solution. 
> .    First, what was presented as a universal commitment to everyone 
> has over the years been increasingly restricted to 'indigents', to use 
> the highly pejorative, though official, feudal term
> .    Second, although no accurate information is available, it is 
> clear that large numbers of poor people are still not receiving any 
> free water 
> .    Third, the government has defined the constitutional guarantee of 
> 'sufficient' water to mean 25 litres per person per day.  This is an 
> entirely arbitrary amount.  More to the point is that it bears little 
> resemblance to the actual basic needs of real people.  Allowing for an 
> occasion bath and shower -- thereby giving some meaning to the 
> constitution's guarantee of dignity -- means at least a 4-fold 
> increase in the basic amount.  And, it must be noted, this increase 
> still excludes the special water needs of the very young, the old and 
> the sick, including people with HIV/AIDS.  Also excluded from this 
> required 4-fold plus increase is water required for backyard fruit and 
> vegetable growing that could contribute to the food security that is 
> an additional constitutional guarantee.
> These are not controversial points.  All of them are statements of 
> fact.  In countering them, Ministers and government officials would 
> instead point to practical difficulties such as cost, capacity, water 
> shortages and the need for time in which to rectify the injustices of 
> apartheid.  None of these arguments, however, is sustainable.  (Samwu 
> cannot develop these points now but would be happy to do so on another 
> occasion.)
> These alleged practical difficulties, together with the government's 
> general policy of commercialisation of essential services, its 
> adoption of the user-pay principle and its promotion of BEE, have, in 
> a complex of interacting ways, also led the government to look at 
> fully-fledged privatisation, public private partnerships and 
> outsourcing as partial solutions to the water delivery problem. 
> In our view, these intended solutions in fact aggravate the problem.  
> Again, space does not allow for any elaboration other than one 
> consideration.  The private sector is not a charity but is driven by 
> the imperatives of profit maximisation.  This is not intended as a 
> critique but as a simple description.  Supplying water or sanitation, 
> in a country where the majority of people are poor, is therefore 
> either not a viable business proposition or, if it is, is unavoidably 
> -- and in many different ways -- made sufficiently profitable at the 
> expense of the poor.
> Dr Jeff Rudin
> National Research Officer
> South African Municipal Workers' Union
>