For this post, I was originally
intending to look at both sides of the private-public debate in relation to
water supply in African countries. However, after our lecture with Ben Page I
now understand that this is by no means a simple debate with a simple answer,
and it almost definitely would be hard to reach any definitive conclusion in
the space of under one thousand words.
Rather than sticking to my original
plan therefore I have decided to look at something that is related to the debate,
but can be seen as a ‘different player’. In both my post on inequality as well
as the BBC news post on Harare, I mentioned the presence of water vendors.
Water vendors are interesting for they are neither ‘public’ water provisions
nor are they divestiture/outright sale of state assets (privatisation). Rather,
often created by local actors who see profit making potential from inadequate water
provisioning, they can be seen as a non-state privatisation form of water
provision.
These types of vendors proliferate in many
areas in Africa, a reason for why this is important to analyse. For this blog
post I am going to focus on the locality mentioned in my previous post: Harare,
Zimbabwe. Searching for information on this and I came across a very recent
article by Manungu et al., (2016) named ‘Bulk water suppliers in the City of
Harare – An endogenous form of privatisation of urban domestic water services
in Zimbabwe?’. The document is up to date and gives a clear overview of the
situation regarding bulk water vendors in Harare. I will therefore below use
their information to give a contextual overview of the situation in Harare.
Looking at their conclusions in relation to whether bulk water vendors are a good
alternative to water supply, I will offer some of my own opinions.
Harare: failure of private and public strategies
Harare is Zimbabwe’s largest metropolis and
capital. Both privatisation and public approaches to water supply from the
early 90’s have failed in different ways leading to shortages. Firstly, a
failed IMF/World Bank structural adjustment programme starved government funds
to improve water supply infrastructure and reform water supply and management.
There was also a failure of state-led Government efforts to mobilise international
financing alongside Harare City Council’s failure to raise local financing.
This was all against a backdrop of rapidly deteriorating economic conditions.
The result was a deterioration of Harare’s water supply infrastructure followed
by severe water shortages (urban water coverage in Zimbabwe has been declining since the late 1990’s). In
2008 there was a widespread outbreak of cholera (BBC, 2008).
It is in this context that residents have
been forced to look for alternative water sources. Some residents have resorted
to digging shallow wells, drilling boreholes, putting up storage tanks and,
lastly, sourcing water from bulk water vendors.
The rise of bulk water vendors
Bulk water vendors rose in Harare between
2005 and 2013. These vendors served those in households in the high-income
suburbs, which had extremely limited piped water supplies. The prices suppliers
charged are a minimum of USD40 and USD75 per 5000 litres depending on the
company. Four main companies exist: Highmel Water deliveries, Water.com, Orca
Waters and another one with no specific name, just the word ‘water’. The
companies were classed as illegal until 2013 when the Zimbabwe National Water
Authority rendered them legal so long they paid a quarterly subscription fee to
their respective sub-catchment council and submit fortnightly water quality,
grounded water level, and abstraction volume reports. According to this
article, 60% of 67 respondents rated the water good quality.
Are bulk water vendors the way forward?
Manungu et al., (2016: 77) conclude
their paper by stating that:
‘bulk
water suppliers represented successful mobilisation of local (Zimbabwean)
private capital into the urban domestic water sector without any assistance
from the state or international resources. The capital that was invested was
substantial by Zimbabwean standards. It is also remarkable that the customers
were satisfied with the service they obtained, which cannot be said about the
service of the City Council. Therefore, we argue that bulk water suppliers can
be seen as a viable alternative endogenous form of privatisation of urban
domestic water supply as contrasted to multinational companies.’
Whilst I agree that this situation may be
better than multinational companies profiting, looking at it from a broader
perspective I am not so convinced that water vendors are a better option than
other methods. Despite how ‘satisfied’ the customers who received the water
were, I can’t not think of the larger proportion of the Harare population who will
be much less than satisfied with the water they are left to receive.
As highlighted in the article, these vendors almost
exclusively serve those who can afford it, which in this case is those located in
the wealthy suburbs of Harare. Whilst this might be a good alternative to them,
as my post on inequality showed, for anyone with less money these forms of
water can be around 10 times more than municipal water services cost. For some
this is simply too much and as a result, less safe options have to be pursued.
If I was to give an opinion on water vendors
therefore I would say that, in times of water shortages if this is the only
viable option for clean quality water then it could potentially be used as a
(very) short term option. Long-term plans for better municipal water supplies
are what I believe to be a much better option however. Jake Stenson (another member of GEOG3038) wrote
a great blog post on the public/private debate, where said that he agreed with
the following quote, which I also could not agree with more:
‘Just because someone can afford to pay the
cost of filling their swimming pool or washing their cars every day, should
they have the right to do so when others are struggling to survive with no
water at all?’ (Mcdonald, 2002)
If vended water is always more expensive than
municipal water, then I cannot agree that it is a viable source of water
provision. However, maybe an option of the state and donors subsidising these
water providers could be a potential way to reduce the cost of these private
vendors and thereby increase poorer persons access to the supply? Ensuring that
water vendor monopolies do not form is also crucial as this can rapidly
increase prices (Kjellén and McGranahan, 2006). I also believe that in periods of water
shortages such as that in Harare I there should be limits on the volume of
clean water that households are able to purchase, ensuring that it is not all
used up by richer homes.
Overall I agree with (Kjellén and McGranahan,
2006) that despite ‘experts [lamenting] the “myth” that water is a free good, when
people treat it as a normal economic commodity, this too is unacceptable.
BBC (2008) ‘No water’ in cholera-hit Harare, (WWW) BBC (bbc.co.uk;
08/01/17)
Manzungu, E.; Mudenda-Damba, M.; Madyiwa, S.; Dzingirai, V. and
Musoni, S. 2016. Bulk water suppliers in the City of Harare – An endogenous
form of privatisation of urban domestic water services in Zimbabwe? Water
Alternatives 9(1): 56-80
McDonald, D. (2002) ‘No money no Service’, Sustaining
Livelihoods, 28(2), pp. 16–20.
Kjellén, M and McGranahan, G (2006) Informal Water Vendors and the
Urban Poor, Human Settlements Discussion Paper Series, London:
International Insitute for Environment and Development (IIED).
