News from Public Citizen's Water For All Campaign
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Friends

The 'pay as you go' approach has reached into a new market - water.

Pre-paid water meters are becoming the latest way to deprive the poor from access to water.

In more and more communities around the world - as 'cost recovery' or market based approaches to managing public utilities usurp human rights - people are finding they must pay up front, even at communal standpipes.

But if you have no income you cannot pay and then you have no water.

Pre-paid water meters are prevalent in South Africa. They are manufactured in South African communities and exported abroad.

Their use in South Africa is well documented and caused a massive cholera outbreak in 2001 where more than 100,000 people got sick and several hundred died.

Please sign the attached protest letter that will be directed to South African parliamentarians to show your opposition to increasing corporate control and commodification of water, and show your support for clean and affordable water for all.

Forward you support to [email protected] before November 18.

November, 2003

International call for Solidarity with Water Struggles in South Africa

Your organizational help is needed to support water struggles in South African and to campaign against the water baron - Suez. Please read and sign on to the letter below by November 16. Also please also copy this to your respective South African consulate or embassy representative in the country you reside. For a full list go to: http://www.polity.org.za/html/lists/embassites.html.

November, 2003

Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, Mr Ronnie Kasrils
Minister for Provincial and Local Government, Mr Sydney Mufamadi
Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Mr Penuel Maduna

Governmental Ministers

We are writing because it has come to our attention that Johannesburg Water in partnership with Suez is in effect violating one of the most celebrated achievements of South Africa's transition to democracy. The South African Constitution and the enshrined Bill of Rights provides that, "everyone has the right to have access to sufficient water".

Ministers, as you know, South Africa is also a signatory to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This Covenant explicitly acknowledges, "water is a public good fundamental for life and health … the human right to water is indispensable for leading a life of human dignity, it is prerequisite for the realization of other human rights".

We believe the French multinational Suez (through partnership with Johannesburg Water) is effectively overlooking both this International Covenant and the South African Constitutional right of access to sufficient water by installing pre-paid water meter systems in poor and primarily black communities of Johannesburg.

Pre-paid water meter systems and the associated policy of 'cost recovery' has resulted in price increases, hitting poor communities the hardest. Unable to pay, poor families have been cut-off from their water supplies -as many as ten million people have been affected by cut-offs since the end of apartheid. Those poor communities without previous access to clean water have either suffered the same fate once infrastructure was provided or have simply had to make do with sourcing water from polluted streams and far-away boreholes.

The collective impact of water privatization on the majority of South Africans has been devastating. The desperate search for any available source of water has resulted in cholera outbreaks that have claimed the lives of hundreds. Inadequate hygiene and 'self-serve' sanitation systems have led to continuous exposure, especially for children to various preventable diseases.

There has been an increase in environmental pollution and degradation arising from uncontrolled effluent discharges. There is a scarcity of water for food production. And, the human dignity of entire communities has been ripped apart, as the right to the most basic of human needs, water, has been turned into a restricted privilege available only to those who can afford it.

Clearly, this policy and the reliance on foreign water corporations like Suez violate the spirit and intent of the Bill of the Rights and the International Covenant on Rights.

Ministers, there is also considerable evidence from Suez's international track record that your governments national and international obligations to provide South African citizens sufficient water services via Suez in particular, is in jeopardy.

Not long ago, Suez was the company leading the globalization of private water operations, declaring that bringing water to the poor is one mission that the company was committed to, yet in it's Strategic Action Plan from January 2003 Suez revealed its new corporate strategy which essentially is to abandon projects which are problematic, risky or not as lucrative - mostly in the developing countries.

Ministers of South Africa, we urge you to examine the experiences of other countries with Suez and with pre-paid metering systems in general which have a deleterious impact on communities and have proven to be contravention of basic human rights.

Pre-paid water meters were declared illegal in the United Kingdom (U.K.) under the Water Act of 1998. The U.K demonstrated the courage to end a disastrous policy after research showed pre-paid water meters were linked to increased cases of dysentery and other diseases related to lack of clean water.

That lesson is already known to South Africans from the 2001 cholera outbreak in KwaZulu-Natal province, which showed conclusively this disaster was linked to policies of increased cost recovery, the installation of pre-paid meters, and the special vulnerability of people living with HIV or cholera.

The pricing or tariff structures for water are not sufficiently "progressive", penalizing those who consume relatively little while continuing to subsidize those who consume a lot.

Given, Suez's corporate retreat from less lucrative ventures there is reason to be concerned with Suez's capacity to honor the public policy intent behind the 'free water' policy.

Ministers, as you know, the resistance campaign to pre-paid water meters is growing and gaining support internationally - the likely outcome will be increased notoriety for Suez and its' supply chain manufacturers.

Ministers, finally we urge you to closely examine the track record of Suez in places like Manila, Philippines; Buenos Aires, Argentina; New Delhi, India; Halifax, Canada; New Rochelle, and Atlanta USA and their operations in France. You will find that Suez has a legacy o problems including early termination of contracts, fines from regulatory agencies, unfulfilled contractual agreements, angering local communities affected by groundwater impacts and they have also faced a number of corruption investigations.

It is no consolation that former senior Suez Executive Gerard Payen's has publicly commented that 'other businesses are worse than Suez'.

We call upon you now to show the world the strength of character that the new South African government demonstrated when your leaders crafted your constitution.

Now is the time to outlaw and remove from all communities pre paid meters where they have been installed.

Now is the time for government to reverse its policy of privatizing water and all other basic needs by canceling all 'service' contracts and management agreements with private water/waste corporations.

Now is the time for governments to publicly affirm the human and constitutional right of all South Africans to water by ensuring full public ownership, operation and management of public utilities in order to provide free basic services for all.

Now is the time for government to make a firm political and fiscal commitment to rollout universally accessible infrastructure for the delivery of water that will uphold human rights and human dignity.

Now is the moment to do the right thing.

Endorsed by:

Polaris Institute,
Public Citizen

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