FW: [corp-focus] Thirsty for Justice

["D OC" <donaloc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thirsty for Justice
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

Shown the folly of over-reliance on markets even in the world's richest
country, the market fundamentalists at the World Bank are continuing
their push for privatization of services -- with the provision of
drinking water at the top of the list -- in the developing world.

Water works plagued by poor service and underinvestment can be
rejuvenated by private water operators. That according to the World
Bank, a compromised consulting industry and the private water industry
-- dominated by the French firms Suez and Vivendi -- itself.

But citizen movements across the planet are rising to challenge the
World Bank and corporate schemes to wrest control of now-public water
systems. Perhaps the hottest flashpoint in the conflict between the
people and the Water Barons is in Ghana. There, the National Coalition
Against the Privatization of Water (NCAP of Water) is aggressively
opposing a Bank-advocated privatization scheme that would lease out the
country's urban water systems for a song. The scheme was hatched in
1995, and may be implemented next year, unless NCAP can thwart it.

(A newly released International Fact-Finding Mission assessment of the
Ghanaian privatization proposal is available at:
http://www.citizen.org/documents/factfindingmissionGhana.pdf)
The World Bank has not considered these approaches, and at least one
pro-privatization consultant's document suggests that such measures
would interfere with the flourishing private market in water provision!

Full: http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2002/000125.html


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