The Cost of Clean Water?

This weeks blog will focus on the privatisation of water in South- West Africa. We will be exploring the key challenges of privatisation and whether it is the best solution to the provision of water? The critical case study which we will focus on is Swakopmund located on the coast of Nambia highlighted in Figure 1 below: 

Figure 1: A Detailed map of Namibia in South-West Africa ( Lonely Planet)

So what is privatisation? Bayliss, 2003 defines privatisation in Africa as a variety of "contractual arrangements between the government and the private sector," this includes the matter of risk management as well as different levels of water ownership. Figure 2 illustrates how the private sector can be involved in water supplies, from short to permanent contracts.  The history of privatisation in Africa reveals that the initial enthusiasm during the Washington Consensus in the 1990s diminished over time as a result of the financial crisis and water being intertwined. This leads to a strategic retreat by private water companies from 2000 to 2007 as enthusiasm lowers. Finally, a shallow growth occurred in the private sector between 2008 to 2016 as the African government acknowledged higher political risk due to water being too expensive(Bayliss, 2003). 

Figure 2: A diagram showing the different lengths of contractual agreements ( Bayliss,2003).

According to UNICEF 2010, only 33% of Namibia's population had access to improved sanitation and a staggering 14% of the rural population had access to improved sanitation. It can, however, be noted that these percentages have increased overtime yet the rural community still significantly lag behind on achieving clean, healthy water (Hooks,2013). 

A report by Jade McClune, 2004 titled " Water Privatisation in Namibia- Creating a new Apartheid?" highlights the complexities of water privatisation for the poor and the loss of control from the government to powerful private sector monopolies. The report illustrates the area of Swakopmund as having a vast contrast in wealth, with an affluent population located by the coast and a population facing extreme poverty on the outskirts. On the northeast outskirts of the township, there is the Democratic Resettlement Community (DRC) declared as an informal settlement in 2003 (McClune,2004). This area is known for the lack of water supply and the absence of basic facilities. The Town Council introduced pre-paid water meters in this informal settlements as a way of recovering outstanding ground rent debts from the locals. 

Why prepaid water meters are a problem? The prepaid water meters were installed by the Nossob River system and experienced many failures. These failures included the functioning of the cards, the lack of maintenance to the meters and most importantly the unaffordability( McClune, 2004). As noted previously, locals in the DRC were impoverished, yet the council claimed they were owed N$200,00 in ground rent and began to deduct this from their water credits leaving many without a water supply. Furthermore, even if locals were able to pay the costs of the water meter, the water meter was located amongst a graveyard and deemed by the leader of the DRC residents committee as "very dirty" and "not for people" (McClune, 2004). Additionally, another claimed the poor being forced to resort to such water as an 'apartheid' as the rich could have access to clean water as much as they pleased yet the poor had undignified resources (McClune, 2004).  The use of pre-paid water meters to recover debts has been outlawed as a threat to public health in the UK's 1998 Water Act. This illustrates that globally pre-paid water meters are unacceptable especially for those unable to afford water or access any other clean water resource. 

Penultimately, on a wider scale, the Namibian Water Corporation Ltd ( Figure 3) created in 1998 as a fully government-owned company began to make significant amounts of profit by increasing debt collection and cutting costs ( Bayliss, 2003). The Namibian Water Corporation also introduced tariffs on a zone basis to enable cross-subsidy(Bayliss, 2003). The price of water increased due to these tariffs and in June 2003 water rates at Swakopmund increased by 11%(McClune, 2004). A wealthier local council could absorb the cost of water supply. This was politically advantageous than councils who would let the water price charge be directly passed on to consumers. This shows the disadvantage of poorer areas in Nambian whos council would be unable to lower costs resulting in the poorest areas receiving the highest charges for their supply of water.

Figure 3: Namibia Water Corporation Ltd Logo. Source: NamWater, 2018. 

To conclude, the case study is a clear indication of how the provision of water is becoming a source of profit. Local governments pass social responsibility to private firms to avoid public accountability. Figure 4 below is a photo taken of a peaceful protest by locals against the charge of the prepaid water meters and the lack of consultation by the council ( The Namibian, 2018).  The protest occurring in 2018 demonstrates the ongoing fight against privatisation and the inaccessibility to affordable, clean water, defined by the UN as a "human right."

Figure 4: Picture to show the peaceful protest by locals over the pre-paid water meters. Source: The Namibian, 2018.