Why is Britain using its aid money to persuade South Africa to privatise its public services?
George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 19th October 2004 No one could have accused the Conservative government of breaking its promise to bring back Victorian values. When, in 1992, it permitted private water companies to install pre-paid meters in Birmingham, the people who couldn’t afford to flush their toilets started defecating into pots, which they then emptied out of the windows of their tower blocks.(1) It made one quite nostalgic. The meters were ruled illegal in 1998, on the grounds that they deprived the poor of their most important resource.(2) So it goes without saying that the model has now been exported to two of the world’s poorest urban communities. Some African countries are so short of money that delivering clean water to everyone is almost impossible. But not South Africa. In purchasing power terms, it is the world’s 21st biggest economy.(3) It is also one of the most unequal. It could afford to provide everyone with sufficient water, as long as it was prepared to
