State, Citizens and Water Privatisation
By: Francis Abayomi
For two days last week, local and international stakeholders converged on the city of Lagos for a Summit with the theme: Connecting Local Outrage to Global Resistance of Corporate Control of Water. Tagged Lagos Water Summit 2015, the gathering became a melting pot for rigorous stock-taking, brainstorming and debates bordering on the challenge and implications of the increasing global trend in water privatisation being championed by International Finance Corporation (IFC), a linchpin of the World Bank. The Summit ended on the note of clarion call on global citizens to be vigilant; and if necessary resist corporate abuse of fostering water privatisation as the only guarantee to make the State deliver on its responsibility to the people.
Although the Summit was in continuation of the global crusade against water privatisation, the choice of Lagos as the venue was not only deliberate but instructive. Whereas Lagos State Government has been neck-deep with water privatisation plan in concert with the World Bank, relevant information regarding details of the plan was however shrouded in secrecy, until October, 2014 when correspondence confirmed that IFC had indeed served in advisory capacity in the proposed privatisation plan. Besides, Lagos is unique for its commercial appeal and could therefore be deployed as template for experimentation of water privatisation if immediate and concerted efforts were not made by relevant stakeholders.
The global movement against water privatisation is concerned about the inherent lack of transparency and accountability in water privatisation project financed as public-private-partnership (PPP). Of paramount concern as well are the far-reaching implications which water privatisation portends for the immediate communities in terms of ownership, access, affordability and job security. It is therefore understandable that local outrage against water privatisation readily connects with global resistance around an emerging movement that appears unstoppable in ensuring equity and social justice in the development and utilisation of water and its resources.
As expected, informed presentations and submissions at the Summit raised critical issues that underlie imperatives of global campaign against water privatisation. Dr. Godwin Uyi Ojo, the Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria ERA/FoEN however provided elucidating justifications for “contending with drivers of water privatisation” as he aptly captioned his presentation. Dr. Ojo drew attention to two dominant concern in the privatisation scheme that must be taken into serious account by stakeholders, namely; the growing capture of resources which tends to erode the role of the state in ensuring good governance, equity and social justice on one hand as well as the implicit attempt at monetising nature and the ecosystem as elements of goods and services to be left to dynamics of market forces namely; speculation, stocks and collaterals, on the other hand. In addition, the privation of communal heritage of which water remains critical also becomes a dominant concern in the campaign.
On the basis of the aforementioned, it was not surprising that the Summit beamed searchlight on increasing encroachment on the rights of citizens to affordable portable water through market driven privatisation agenda that threatens to disposes community and the people of their common resources on the pretext of corporate financing whose overriding objective essentially boils down to profiteering. Global resistance against water privatisation therefore becomes understandable in the light of the huge emphasise on the marketability of water as a commodity at the expense of affordability and accessibility of water to the citizens as essential to human existence.
For instance, the penchant for touting privatisation as the only alternative in meeting the needs of the people following the mismanagement of public water has been vigorously justified by decades of rots and inefficiency and lately total collapse of public water system across Nigeria. What however becomes crystal clearer is that collapse of public water corporations has been largely deliberate more so that such questionable justification is readily deployed as smokescreen for implementing water privatisation commonly presented as PPP mostly promoted by entrenched interests some of whom were major players in the collapse of the public water corporations.
It is important to emphasise that local and international stakeholders at the Summit not only participated as global citizens in spite of the differences in cultural experience and political circumstance but also shared common concerns regarding the dangers of water privatisation as proposed by international finance capital. Participants from across countries in Africa, Europe and America expressed serious doubt regarding privatisation proposals with overwhelming opinions to the effect public water projects financed in the last three decades by Word Bank and through other loan facilities failed owing to corruption and deliberate policies that relegated local capacity building.
Convincing pessimists that public water can indeed work with required efficiency remains a major task in the campaign. This is so in the light of the largely held opinion that government has no business in business and that corruption in the public space remains a peculiar mess in some societies. Nevertheless, leading partners in the coalition which include Corporate Accountability International (CAI), Public Service International (PSI) and the Amalgamated Union of Public Service Union of Nigeria (AUPCTRE) would need to engage more stakeholders with the view to drum support for the NO TO WATER PRIVATISATION campaign which admittedly is yet to get the desire momentum in this part of the world. There are so many huddles that seem herculean. It is however reassuring that these challenges are not altogether insurmountable!
This piece was first published by DAILY INDEPENDENT on SUNDAY 16th August, 2015.
