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Joined: 05 Nov 2003
Posts: 814
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 12:00 pm Post Subject: Third World Countries to pay dearly for Debt Cancellation
Recently we saw a documentary about a corporate strategy to control the world's water. "Dead in the Water" was made by Canadian producers. As well as documenting some of the scandalous activities occuring in the USA, the program told the story of how private corporations, using money provided by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, are buying water rights from some countries and taking control of the distribution of water supplies.
They told the story of a village in Soweto. Residents previously obtained their water free from a tap in the centre of the town. Now, due to privitisation, they must purchase swipe cards to buy water from metered taps. Many of the people, of course, are unable to afford to do this, so are forced to source this essential from polluted waterways, risking disease. Others are in debt to the water companies and are threatened with having their access completely denied if they cannot pay. Water company executives dressed in clean pressed shirts were interviewed and talked about how the poor needed to learn to budget for, manage and control their use of water more stringently.
I found this to be a truly disturbing account of what is threatening to become a more commonplace situation in today's water starved world.
I was not surprised, therefore, to read this article from Scoop, detailing some of the conditions attached to the much vaunted Debt Cancellation deal, championed by, among others, Sir Bob Geldof and U2's Bono promising to (in simplistic terms at least) clear the debt burden of the people of the countries concerned, virtually overnight.
The article quotes a passage from the Christian Science Monitor: “It’s been a long campaign of persistent persuasion by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish rock star Bono. But finally ... they won a victory for the world’s poorest continent.”
In my opinion, 'victory for the world's poorest continent' could not be further from the truth:
Scoop: Norm Dixon: ‘Africa Needs Justice Not Charity’ wrote:
To reach the HIPC (Highly Indebted Poor Country) completion point, explains AJS (African Jubilee South), “involves the implementation of stringent free market reforms such as [health and education] budget cuts, financial and trade liberalisation, privatisation and other reforms” that ensure, as the G8 finance ministers stated explicitly on June 11, “the elimination of impedients to private investment, both domestic and foreign”. “Twenty other countries may qualify”, AJS pointed out, “but only if they are prepared to go through the same pain that the 18 countries have already endured.”
In Tanzania, 45,000 public sector jobs have been lost due to privatisation. In Zambia, the figure is 60,000. To reach the HIPC “completion point” Tanzania and Ghana were both required to privatise their urban water supplies. Mali was forced to agree to privatise its railways and cotton industry. The World Bank insists that Mali’s state cotton company pay producers the “world market price”, which is a big drop in income.
Mali’s railways are now owned by a Canadian-French consortium, which has shed 600 jobs, closed two-thirds of the stations and decimated passenger numbers, sharply curtailing the livelihoods of thousands who relied on the lines as a source of customers and a way to get their products to markets.
A few facts from the article:
While the $1.5 billion a year made available will certainly be of use for the 18 poverty-stricken countries, it will only boost their collective budget by about 6.5% per annum.Those 18 countries account for only 5% of the population of the Third World, and if all 38 countries become eligible in the future, it will still only affect around 11%.
Britain’s annual contribution to the debt write-off will amount to between $70 million and $96 million, which is much less than the Blair government spends on its occupation of Iraq each year
Washington will need only find between $130 million and $175 million a year, which is almost three times less than it spends each year just to run its Baghdad embassy
Debts owed to the Inter-American Development Bank and the Asian Development Bank are not included in the deal, nor are the Third World countries’ huge bilateral debt burden (that is, debt owed to individual rich countries)
Even if all 38 nominated countries eventually have their multilateral debts wiped, it will still represent just 18% of Africa’s total external debt of $300 billion, and a tiny part of the Third World’s total debt, which is estimated at a staggering $2.4 trillion!
As world water supplies become more and more depleted, privitisation and the risk of corporations being brought in to 'manage and distribute' these scarce supplies is increasingly heightened. This issue is one we should all be concerned about. I don't feel that we can confidently say it couldn't happen here. The privitisation and corporate control of world water supplies is big business now and drought is becoming more common place here in New Zealand.
As the expression goes, beware of Greeks bearing gifts...
Hi Melody
Yes you do have to wonder what their real motivation is. You have to wonder if water reserves will become the next thing controlled by big business. Wasn't there some post somewhere else on the forums that mentioned how expensive bottled water is.
It is for sure one commodity we can not live with out so if there is money to be made then I guess they will be into it
But what I wonder about is what is their real motivation for this. It seems to me this is a way to force these counties into implementing policies they normally wouldn't do.
Joined: 05 Nov 2003
Posts: 814
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 12:32 pm Post Subject:
info4 wrote:
Yes you do have to wonder what their real motivation is.
Well, no actually. You don't have to wonder. I think their motives are crystal clear.
info4 wrote:
You have to wonder if water reserves will become the next thing controlled by big business.
Again, no actually. Water reserves are being controlled by big business - all over the world and with the help of politicians and public officials from countries including France, England, South Africa, Canada, United States, Bolivia and Argentina.
info4 wrote:
But what I wonder about is what is their real motivation for this. It seems to me this is a way to force these counties into implementing policies they normally wouldn't do.
I don't think the article leaves any room for doubt about motives - as always, money, power and greed. Water is a primary basic human need. To place it under the control of any privately motivated organisation, with the power to 'turn the taps off' at any time is just plain wrong.
info4 wrote:
As you say it couldn't happen here :?:
I said "I don't feel that we can confidently say it couldn't happen here".
Joined: 05 Nov 2003
Posts: 387
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 2:42 pm Post Subject:
Below are some extracts from an article in Tuesday's Herald which demonstrate the sort of money to be made in selling water. In this case from a company that is supposedly trying not to make a profit:
Quote:
Water firm has millions to spare
28.06.05 NZ Herald
A cash payout and cheaper water bills are being mooted for the 142,000 residential and business customers of Metrowater as Auckland City Council decides what to do with the bulging balance sheet of its water business.
Despite being told to keep profits to a minimum, council-run Metrowater has accumulated $62 million in spare cash and the council is looking at taking $50 million by way of a "charitable payment".
Distributed equally, the $50 million would be worth about $350 for each household and business.
Mr Walsh (Finance committee chairman) said he was not surprised Metrowater had accumulated $62 million because it operated as a very efficient business but "it can't be allowed to continue at this rate".
Several years ago, Metrowater was told to prune profits from normal business levels to a return on equity of between 1 per cent and 4 per cent.
Despite this, and the introduction two years ago of a 10 per cent prompt payment discount on water bills, its cash reserves have continued to swell.
Green Party councillor Neil Abel said any dividend should be reflected in the areas where the money was collected, in water and wastewater, and not diverted into other areas such as the Civic Carpark.
There is no doubt that if our water supply was in the hands of one privately owned company (a monopoly) they would;
1/ Make much more profit, though would probably hide much of the profit from public scrutiny in the murkiness of the balance sheet
2/ Reduce expenditure on upgrading infrastructure and on maintenance, perhaps cutting jobs
3/ Send the profits offshore
If the council distributed charitable payments for their surplus profits we'd be paid by them for our water. Our annual water bill doesn't ever get to $350.00 :!: However, we are not under the Auckland City Council area...
I see there is a short article at Scoop about waste water charges. They're out to get you both ways - coming in and going out:
Quote:
As most of you know the community in Waitakere City has opposed user pays , or flat charges, and held back commercialisation of water services for several years. But the council is at it again - they never seem to give up. They are attempting to bring wastewater user charges through the back door in supporting a declaratory judgement by the North Shore City Council which seeks to gain the right to charge wastewater user charges, without forming a water company - like Metrowater.
Joined: 05 Nov 2003
Posts: 814
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 8:15 pm Post Subject:
The effects of the solutions to 'making povery history' continue to escalate suffering and despair in the lives of ordinary folk in the world's poorest countries. Johann Hari wrties about the World Bank's activities in his article for the independent...
Quote:
...Half a world away, in Bolivia, Maxima Cari - a mother - is also thirsty. "The World Bank took away my right to clean water," she explains. In 1997 the World Bank demanded the Bolivian government privatise the country's water supply. So Maxima couldn't afford it any more. Now she has to use dirty water from a well her villagers dug. This dirty water is making her children sick, and she is sullen. "I wash my children weekly," Maxima says. "Sometimes there's only enough water to wash their hands and faces, not their whole body ... This is not a nice way to live." The newly elected socialist government of Evo Morales is planning to take the water back - and he is, of course, condemned and threatened by the World Bank.
Read the entire article:
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/johann_hari/article2486595.ece
Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 858
Location: north-east victoria
Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 2:49 pm Post Subject:
good morning , Posters. Your assessment , Melody , summed up in money , power and greed , is spot -on , and i would add unbelievable cunning . entities like the world bank are expendable , like everything and everybody else , to these powerbrokers . maybe most people have read the quote from president Roosevelt , speaking of a subtle and brutal power .
