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Tahliba
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Posted: Sunday September 25th, 2005 16:40 |
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Dirty aid, dirty water
 Sierra Leone: UK spends aid money on a public relations campaign to pursue water privatisation agenda in Sierra Leone. Read more on Sierra Leone.
Tanzania: UK water company Biwater is kicked out of a controversial water privatisation by the Government of Tanzania just two years into a ten year contract. Read more / Listen to WDM on Radio 4
Ghana: Under pressure from WDM, Biwater Plc withdraws from the bidding process for a controversial water privatisation in Ghana. Read more.
 [url=javascript:openWin('http://www.wdm.org.uk/campaigns/aid/wdm.swf');] View the Story of Dirty Aid, Dirty Water animation[/url] (Flash, 286kb)
British aid money is being used to push water privatisation on poor countries - making it less likely that clean water will ever get to the poorest people. And while poor people lose out, a group of big UK companies are profiting from this aid.
In a world where nearly 6,000 children die every day because of unclean water, this is a scandal that must stop now.
WDM launches its Dirty Aid, Dirty Water campaign, February 2005.
Read more and view photos
Case after case shows how water privatisation creates more problems than it solves. It has led to unnecessary price rises while failing to connect poor people to clean water. But the UK Government is paying millions to wealthy "privatisation consultants", like Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Adam Smith International and Halcrow, to promote it.
For example, in Ghana, the UK Government and the pro-privatisation consultants it pays for have supported and promoted an undemocratic privatisation that will undermine water access.
WDM activists protest outside engineering consultancy Halcrow's offices, March 2005.
Read more and view photos
At the moment aid money is being spent on:
- Expensive advice on water systems - with a massive bias towards privatisation as the only solution.
- Public relations offensives, designed to convince objecting communities that privatisation of water is in their best interests.
- Funding for privatisation, either by subsidising private water suppliers and the privatisation process, or by tying concessional loans to privatisation, so the only way becomes the private way.
The World Development Movement's Dirty Aid, Dirty Water campaign demands that the UK Government stops this waste of aid and starts supporting real solutions to the water crisis.
Campaign summary >>
Taken from
[url=http://africa.oneworld.net/external/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fhttp://www.wdm.org.uk%2Fnews%2Fpresrel%2Fcurrent%2Fsierraleone.htm]http://africa.oneworld.net/external/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fhttp://www.wdm.org.uk%2Fnews%2Fpresrel%2Fcurrent%2Fsierraleone.htm[/url]
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Tahliba
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Posted: Sunday September 25th, 2005 16:43 |
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See also:
http://www.blackchat.co.uk/theblackforum/forum32/17298.html
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Tahliba
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Posted: Sunday September 25th, 2005 18:07 |
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| What is wrong with those photos'?
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newstyle
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Posted: Monday September 26th, 2005 00:41 |
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Tahliba wrote:
What is wrong with those photos'?
Do you mean the lack of numbers or the lack of black faces or both?
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Tahliba
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Posted: Tuesday September 27th, 2005 11:47 |
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newstyle wrote: Tahliba wrote:
What is wrong with those photos'?
Do you mean the lack of numbers or the lack of black faces or both?
I wonder how many others came up with your answers?
Actually the lack of numbers never occured to me...I am used to that (besides there are restrictions on the numbers that can demonstrate in the vicinity of the seat of goverment)
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defyfear
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Posted: Thursday October 13th, 2005 23:48 |
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Another one of those western business can operate 24/7 with no problems in Africa while the locals have to expend their bodily strength for the same convenience. The backdrop to this country is stunning.
GUINEA: Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
© Pierre Holtz
Many areas don't have easy access to water
CONAKRY, 13 Oct 2005 (IRIN) - It's the rainy season in Guinea, one of West Africa's wettest countries, but the taps in many of its towns have run dry.
Guinea is nicknamed West Africa's "water tower" because it contains the headwaters of a number of the region's major rivers, including the Senegal and the Niger. In parts of the country's interior, average annual rainfall is close to four metres.
And yet, breakdowns at the national water company's treatment centres have left major towns in the interior like Kindia and Labe with little or no running water for weeks. N'zerekore, near the Liberian border, has been without for the last five years.
This paradox is par for the course in a country where, despite large reserves of bauxite, gold, and diamonds, the majority of people live on less than a dollar a day.
Even the capital has not escaped the shortages. While the business districts have a fairly reliable infrastructure, residents of many of Conakry's areas find themselves forced to go looking for water.
"It's been two years since we had drinkable water in our neighbourhood," Thiany Yansane, a local councillor, told IRIN. "That's why I always keep jerry-cans in my car in order to fill them up with water at the office."
Mohammed Dangoura, a Red Cross official in Conakry, says that there are two reasons, both linked to the country's poverty, for people's inability to get access to proper drinking water. First, the vast majority simply do not have the money to pay for the service. And second, the national water company cannot afford to provide it.
Lack of access
In a report released in June, the international think-tank Crisis Group warned that Guinea was on the verge of becoming West Africa's next failed state.
Lansana Conte, Guinea's president since coming to power in a 1984 coup, is seriously ill and lacks a clear successor while the opposition has yet to provide a strong alternative. The combination leaves the future uncertain and the present increasingly difficult as the state breaks down.
"This (water issue) is not out of character with the problems that Guineans are living with in every aspect of their lives," said Mike McGovern, the West Africa project director at Crisis Group, adding that similar difficulties exist in other areas like transportation, health and education.
"There's no real excuse for the current problems," McGovern told IRIN. "The bottom line is it's a very rich country that should have the ability to provide things for its people and it's not doing it."
While water cuts are not uncommon in Guinea, the present shortages are especially difficult for this mostly Islamic country as last week marked the beginning of Ramadan, a period in which many Muslims go without food and drink during daylight hours. As evening falls and the fast is broken, people require access to water for replenishment, a fact which the government readily admits.
"We have called together officials from the interior of the country to ensure that everybody has access to water during the holy month of Ramadan," Fatoumata Binta Diallo, Guinea's energy minister, told IRIN last week.
But one week into this year's fasting period, the problem had not been solved and the government decided on Monday to replace the heads of the troubled water and electric companies.
The utility's ex-director, Acheick Mouctar Youla, speaking to IRIN shortly before the high-level reshuffle, admitted to some supply problems, which he blamed on poor maintenance and the soaring cost of fuel necessary to keep the treatment centres running. He said the 24 facilities in the country's interior require 10,000 litres per month, leaving the company with a tab of close to US$ 9,000.
Problems not new
But the country's water problems date back to before the recent surge in world oil prices.
A rocky relationship between the government and foreign companies, qualified as disastrous by Crisis Group's McGovern, led to terminated contracts and the nationalisation of the country's utilities at the end of 2000. The results of the change, however, have been less than stellar.
"It's only got worse since they left," McGovern said.
According to water company officials who wished to remain anonymous, the utility's current financial woes are due to poor management and difficulties collecting revenue as a result of the number of people who siphon off water supplies illegally.
McGovern said the Guinean government's decision to nationalise its utilities was in keeping with a tradition of blaming problems on foreigners to cover up bad governance.
"But the large majority of Guineans no longer buy that rhetoric and that's an important development," he told IRIN.
That development may explain some of this week's moves. In addition to replacing the heads of the national utilities, the government announced on Tuesday that it had settled a long-running feud with three foreign energy companies.
The French Saur and Electricite de France (EDF) and the Canadian Hydro-Quebec agreed to waive 70 per cent of the debt they claimed to be owed by the government, leaving a total of 3 million euros ($3.6 million) to be repaid over the next 36 months.
In recent years, corruption and the lack of democracy have made foreign donors increasingly reluctant to lend money to Guinea but EDF representative Andre Jaujay said that this new deal could help to change all that.
"With foreign loans serving as a foundation, our companies will be happy to be serious partners in Guinea," he said, speaking on behalf of the three multinationals at the signing of the accord.
But still, there is no water.
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ChubbiChix
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Posted: Friday October 14th, 2005 07:56 |
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| Thats a good question, where is all that money? Why is a large number of the people still living in poverty and not getting much help with the many problems they are facing? Not saying that blacks are all righteous but white people are surely devils and every part of the world they go, they will control the resourses and cause chaos and destruction.
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