Water privatization is when private corporation obtains the
right to buy or operate a town’s public water services. Local governments often
give up their water rights to these companies for the pay out or because their
water systems are old and need replacing but the current funds are not there.
From reading many articles over the years this often leads to higher rates for
the citizens that live there and worse service than they had previously. By
signing over the property of the city’s water you are losing all control you
had previously. The companies that purchase the towns water often do not care
about the service they receive because they only care about the stockholder’s
opinion. Since the company does not care about the citizen’s opinions the
public has lost any input in the new system. When a corporation owns a town’s
water supply the public does not get to elect an official like they do in the
public system. This destroys the open communication that exists in a public
system, where anyone can go to the official’s office and talk to them about the
issue. Corporations do not have the same objectives as that of public systems
or the needs of the public. An example of this is where the corporation decides
to choose to expand their services. They will not expand to areas of low income
where they will encounter low bills and issues with collecting the money,
whereas a public system would try to expand to every area. This brings up the
issue of water as a human right, because corporations will not want to supply
water to everyone especially those that do not pay their bills. Humans can live
weeks without food but only days without water which leaves public health in
jeopardy. The world is facing a water crisis, do want our fate in the hands of
some company or do we want to be able to have control of our own services? The
World Bank Group sees water privatization as the solution to this water crisis.
Many international advocacy and civil society groups are pushing the World Bank
to end their support of water privatization. These groups believe that the
World Bank is using its position to get water companies rich instead of
supporting affordable and clean public water services. Corporations want to
make a profit so they will typically hike up the rates, “investor owned
utilities typically charge 33% more for water and 63% more for sewer service
than local government utilities.” The rates only continue to increase year
after year that the company is in control. When a company purchases the water
service they often let go one out of three existing workers in the water
industry.
A different option to privatization is to construct
public-public partnerships. These connections can improve public services and
reduce costs while leaving the communities to retain control of their
municipalities.
This website is a very good source for various issues we are
facing in the United States and around the world, including water privatization.
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