The Privatisation of South Africa’s Water Supply, Part II

Welcome back to this week’s edition of Water, Politics and Africa where we continue looking into the privatisation of domestic water supply in South Africa, and then compare the results of these policies in South Africa and the East African countries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

Water Supply Privatisation in Johannesburg, South Africa (continued)

The changes Johannesburg Water implemented to how water was supplied and billed in the predominantly black townships meant that many families could simply no longer afford their water. While South Africa was the first country to declare it a constitutional right that every citizen have “sufficient food and water” (Section 27(1)(b)), the exact amount was never specified, and therefore an average 8 people per household were assumed when setting the free allowance of 6,000l per month. However, this estimate is far lower than the reality, as Jabu Molobela, a resident of the Soweto township, warns in an interview:     

“6000 liters of water per month is insufficient. Because we in Soweto are living in extended families. Maybe we are 16 in one house. We don’t want to buy water. We want water for free. […] If you don’t have money, you are not going to get water. And water is life. You are going to fight to get that water. Or you are going to steal water from your neighbour. So your neighbour is going to fight you in return. So that’s going to create war among the people.” (Molobela, The Future of Water, 2007)

Resistance from the Townships

For large families, the replacement of the water flat rate with a prepaid system meant severe increases in cost. In response, residents of townships started the ‘Coalition Against Water Privatisation’ and proceeded to sue Johannesburg and its water company, stating that the changes to water supply were unconstitutional and unlawful. Not only did they argue the amount of water allocated to them was insufficient, but that Johannesburg Water was upholding the post-apartheid racial geographies of South Africa by using two completely different systems of business for ‘black’ and ‘white' areas: “Sandton [a suburb] households, with their modern, water-consuming appliances and swimming pools, have access to unlimited supplies of water, while lower-income Blacks living in Phiri [a township] and in backyard shacks are constrained by prepayment water-meter technology” (Narsiah, 2011).

And indeed, in 2008 the landmark ruling went in favour of the plaintiffs, with Judge Tsoka stating “bad payers cannot be described in terms of colour or geographical areas. There may be as many bad customers in historically white areas as there are in historically poor black areas. Bad debt is a human problem, not a racial problem” (ibid). While the ruling was eventually overturned in the Constitutional Court of South Africa a year later, the case became widely known as the Mazibuko case and led to Johannesburg Water nearly doubling the free monthly water allocation for households from 6,000l to 10,000l. 

Comparing South Africa and East Africa

Thus, while in East Africa the privatisation of domestic water supply led overwhelmingly to failure, in South Africa we see a mixed picture of significant improvement in terms of people supplied and other indicators, but with fierce civil resistance to the inequalities it has brought with it. Going back to last week’s post, I quoted Kate Bayliss who said on privatisation that success depended above all on “the state when [water services] were privatised” and on “the wider economic context” (2003).

South Africa, with the exception of its chaotic transition away from apartheid, has remained politically relatively stable in the last 40 years, with a high GDP per capita of 5,273USD and economic growth far surpassing most other sub-Saharan nations. In contrast, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania have a much lower GDP per capita of 615USD, 1,455USD and 879USD, respectively. Uganda has suffered multiple violent military coups since 1967, and fought a 1978 war against Tanzania, which itself has experienced only little economic growth since its 1961 independence. Kenya underwent a coup and widespread human rights abuse in the 1980s, with limited GDP growth until very recently. Kenya and Tanzania held their first multi-party elections in the 90s, Uganda in 2005.

(GDP data from World Bank, historical information from BBC Country Profile Uganda; Kenya; Tanzania)

As seen in Figure 1, GDP per capita for the three East African states has remained largely unchained until about 2005 (which is also the year in which the long term study Drawers of Water ended).

Figure 1: GDP per capita, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda (Google; data from World Bank)

On Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2016, despite South Africa’s reputation for extremely high corruption it ranks significantly higher (=less corrupt) at position 64, compared to Tanzania at 116, Kenya at 145, and Uganda at 151.

Conclusion - Privatisation or not?

In light of the significant differences in political and economic backgrounds between South Africa and Eastern Africa, to what extent can we isolate the impacts of privatisation itself from the development of domestic water supply services? Is the discussion over privatisation versus nationalisation even relevant when it is reasonable to say that, as some scholars argue, both systems would function if the right conditions existed? Unsurprisingly my research has not brought anyone closer to solving this eternal debate, and therefore a more pragmatic approach would be to focus on fixing instead of replacing and restarting.

While the policies of Johannesburg Water were arguably racially discriminating, it is also true that privatisation merely exposed and highlighted issues that were already present, rather than creating them. Only when underlying social issues are brought to the surface can they be addressed, and had privatisation not occurred there would probably never have been a Mazibuko case, a review of infrastructure, or a public conversation about the issue.

In East Africa, there has not been this progress. Yet the region has also been plagued by wars, unrest and extreme corruption, warranting one to ask how any progress could have been achieved at all.

In my previous post I used a quote from Thompson et al. (2000) which noted that privatisation in East Africa occurred “not in ways that fit easily with the World Bank or IMF prescriptions.” Thus in my next post I would like to take a look at these two organisations and their place in the world of water and politics in Africa, be it domestic water or otherwise.