UK wastes millions of pounds of aid on failed water privatisation in Guyana
Posted: Tuesday 20th February 2007
The Guyanese authorities have just cancelled a five-year water management contract with Severn Trent Water International (STWI) citing the company’s failure to meet five out of the seven objectives in the contract.
The Birmingham-based company was being paid its fees for this contract by UK tax-payers out of the UK aid budget, while the privatisation plan was developed by consultants, also paid for by UK aid money.
“Our aid budget has been used to pay the fees of a British private water company operating in a developing country,” said World Development Movement (WDM) water campaigner Vicky Cann.
“Many people will be shocked to learn that millions of pounds of UK aid has propped up the water privatisation in Guyana – money that has now been washed down the drain. The people in Guyana have not received the services they were promised and the authorities seem to have concluded that Severn Trent Water International was not up to the job,” she said.
According to press reports, Guyanese minister Harry Narine Nawbatt has said that the decision to terminate the contract was influenced by the results of an audit into STWI’s performance. The audit showed that while 80 per cent of the Amerindian settlements should receive potable water by 2005, only 4.3 per cent of those settlements received water in 2006, according to media coverage.
“When will the donor community recognise that water privatisation is no solution to tackling the global water crisis? Severn Trent Water International has recently been awarded a similar contract to manage water services in Nepal, despite strong civil society opposition. Surely events in Guyana should lead Severn Trent Water International to pull out of this venture.”
