Africa

IMF forces African countries to privatise water
A review of IMF loan policies in forty random countries reveals that, during 2000, IMF loan agreements in 12 countries included conditions imposing water privatization or full cost recovery. In general, it is African countries, and the smallest, poorest and most debt-ridden countries that are being subjected to IMF conditions on water privatization and full cost recovery.

Cholera and the Age of the Water Barons
2/3/2003 - When cholera appeared on South Africa's Dolphin Coast in August 2000, officials first assumed it was just another of the sporadic outbreaks that have long stricken the country's eastern seaboard. But as the epidemic spread, it turned out to be a chronicle of death foretold by blind ideology. In 1998, local councils had begun taking steps to commercialize their waterworks by forcing residents to pay the full cost of drinking water. But many of the millions of people living in the tin-roof slums... 

Blacks oppose water privatization, from Detroit to South Africa
Two years ago, 300 people died from the worst outbreak of cholera in modern South African history. Bowing to pressure from behemoth international corporations that want to provide water to the world for profit, time-locks had been placed on public water pumps and the citizens of Ngwelezane, a rural township, were forced to use the polluted water of a nearby lake from which they contracted the cholera. Two hundred thousand more people were impacted by the crisis. This past year in Detroit, Mich., a city that is 83 percent Black, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department shut off water service to 40,000 households in the middle of the winter.

Water Tap Often Shut to South Africa's Poor
The afternoon's end brings a rural rush hour of women walking down the dirt road that winds through this village. Many of them barefoot and dressed in rags, the mothers and grandmothers come pushing wheelbarrows or carrying big buckets to fetch water for their families. But the road quickly becomes a divide between the haves and have-nots. Those with pennies to spend stand in line on one side and buy their water from a metered tap.

Nestle controls water in Africa
Johannesburg - Nestle SA has bought the Valvita and Schoonspruit mineral water brands, with a combined local market share of about 30%, from the beginning of next month pending competition board approval.