Mzansi Afrika

UK water company to sue one of world's poorest countries

WORLD DEVELOPMENT MOVEMENT PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release: Thursday 1st December

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UK water company to sue one of world's poorest countries

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Campaigners today (Thursday 1st December 2005) condemned the UK Water company Biwater for suing Tanzania, one of the poorest countries in the world (1). News of the legal action has just been revealed. Earlier this year the Tanzanian Government kicked Biwater out, just two years into a $102 million ten year water privatisation contract, on the grounds that Biwater had failed to make even half the required investment or improve services in the Tanzania's biggest city Dar es Salaam. (2)

Benedict Southworth, Director of the World Development Movement (WDM) said: "This is an absolute disgrace, Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in the world, and now Tanzanian citizens are being punished for being the victims of a failed policy which they did not want. The privatisation, a condition of debt relief, seriously lacked legitimacy (3). Biwater failed to deliver, with people on the ground reporting that water delivery was getting worse in many areas, with empty taps and Biwater's use of bullying tactics which resulted in mass disconnections. (4)

"Biwater's involvement in the Dar es Salaam contract is insured by the UK Export Credit Guarantee Department (ECGD) so not only could the people of Tanzania but also the UK taxpayer end up footing the bill for this debacle! The UK Government bears a heavy responsibility as UK aid money was used to pay for pro-privatisation pop songs and pop videos in Tanzania, despite the overwhelming evidence exposing water privatisation in the developing world as an abject failure."

As activists in Tanzania mobilise in response to the news, WDM have today sent a letter to Biwater expressing their outrage at the legal action and have launched an online action.

Andrew Mushi from the Tanzania Association of Non-Governmental Organisations, today said:  "We are in full support of our government in cancelling the Biwater contract and we think it is very unfair of Biwater to sue our government because the burden of paying for this legal case will fall on the people of Tanzania. We are going to start up a campaign to oppose the privatisation of water supplies in our country and for an end to this legal case against us."

ENDS

Contact: Jo Kuper Press Officer 020 7274 7630 / 07939 245 864 - jo@wdm.org.uk

Notes for editors

1. The announcement was found on the website for ICSID - International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes: Biwater Gauff (Tanzania) Limited v. United Republic of Tanzania - Water and sewer services concession agreement. Registered November 02, 2005. 

2. According to the Government of Tanzania, City Water (the joint venture company involving Biwater) should have invested $8.5 million during the first two years, but as of May 2005, only $4.1 million had been invested. Announcing the decision (Friday 13 May 2005) Water Minister Edward Lowassa said: "The water supply services in Dar es Salaam and in the neighbouring places have deteriorated rather than improving since this firm took over some two years ago.The revocation was made following persistent complaints by city residents over incompetence of the firm."

3. Tanzania is one of the most heavily indebted countries in the world, its external debt stands at $7.5 billion (World Bank). From 1996 to 1999 privatisation of Dar es Salaam's water was a condition of the IMF's Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility and from 2000 to 2003 it was a condition of an IMF Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility. Continued restructuring and privatisation of public utilities was part of Tanazania's conditions for getting debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative.

4. For further details see ActionAid - Tanzania is the 164th poorest country in the world (out of 177). 60 per cent of the population live on less than $2 a day (UNDP Human Development Report 2005). At least 27 per cent (9.8 million people) of Tanzania's population do not have access to safe water. (World Bank) 40 per cent of children under five suffer from diarrhoea as a result of drinking unsafe (Unicef)

5. Biwater's contract was strongly supported by the UK's Department for International Development (DfID) who gave British consultancy Adam Smith International £273,000 of UK taxpayers aid money to produce public relations materials including a pro-privatisation pop song to persuade a sceptical public of the benefits of privatisation.

6. WDM have sent a letter to Larry Magor and launched an online email action 

7. There is no mention of the case on Biwater's website. According to ICSID where the case will be heard Biwater's papers were received in August 2005. This contradicts Biwater's statement in a letter to WDM (October 13 2005) that a reference to them suing on the Radio 4 programme, You and Yours (05 September 2005) was "speculation" and that they were "continuing to review our options but no final decisions have been taken as yet."

Vicky Cann
Campaigns Policy Officer
World Development Movement

25 Beehive Place
London SW9 7QR

Lesotho is first again... huh?

Yes... Lesotho has done it again... it is the first country to ever offer free and universal AIDS/HIV testing to its citizenry. King Moshoeshoe I would have been proud. Never mind that the move is a tad late, it is more than welcome and it is a brilliant initiative. People have been dying long enough. It was high time something drastic was undertaken. If you're wondering about what it is Lesotho has done again, it is being first, or being the only one, or the highest, smallest, poorest, proudest, ad lib, in the world.

One of the smartest things about the intended program is getting to the populace through village chiefs and traditional leaders: Under the scheme, local leaders will be consulted on how best to offer HIV tests to everyone [Source]. Projects that are introduced into the heart of Lesotho (or of Africa?) by foreigners do not take well and therefore do not last long. It sounds like the project manager involved did his or her homework well and carefully thought out how best to really get the tests to the people. I can only be enchanted.

In 2000, Lesotho's population was estimated at a little below 2.2 million. See the figures for 2000 here, those for 2002 here, and those for 2004 here. This year the population stands at 1,867,035, from 2000's 2,182,700. It is high time something significant was done, and this program looks like it's gonna be it.

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM)

The Commonwealth is made up of the following 53 countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Botswana, Britain, Brunei, Cameroon, Canada, Cyprus, Dominica, Fiji, The Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and Grenadines, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu and Zambia. Don't let the name fool you, the wealth isn't common at all.

The Commonwealth met in Malta over the weekend and discussed trade, especially the fact that Europe needs to stop subsidising its farmers to give farmers from poorer nations a chance to compete.

The Commonwealth summit ended in Malta Sunday with members urging the European Union to reduce farm subsidies to make the world markets more accessible to the developing countries. Trade dominated the talks of the 53 heads of government attending the three-day Commonwealth summit in the Maltese capital Valletta. The issue was of particular importance, coming just weeks before crucial World Trade negotiations in Hong Kong. [Source]

Well and good. Fair farming practices and competitive trade are essential issues that do need to be sorted out. Handled right, such issues are probably what will pull poorer countries out of the spiral of poverty in which they find themselves. Poor countries do not need handouts, however much they may want them. I keep hearing that old adage, the one about teaching someone how to fish instead of giving them a fish.

The attendees also discussed climate change, migration issues and terrorism. Well and good, again. The problem is that human rights, democracy and political fairness are being danced upon by many of the poor countries in question. Bob immediately comes to mind. Commonwealth leaders, however, "set aside concerns about democracy in Uganda after the arrest of opposition leader Kizza Besigye, and decided they will hold their next summit in Uganda in 2007" [Source] anyway. Some time ago they did (actually Britain did) get Bob to yank his country from the organisation -- but was that enough? And if it was, why do other members keep going scot-free? What makes the Commonwealth so afraid that it prefers to spend money talking about benign issues like competitive trade, instead of capital matters like freedom and human rights, both of which are essential before any beneficial trade can go on?

If we're to have associations, if we're to belong to clubs, if we're to spend money getting together, then the agenda must be comprised of the true ills plaguing those represented by participants. That seems clear enough but is seldom the case, whether with the Commonwealth or with other abbreviations.

Continental abbreviations

The Pan African Parliament, or PAP, is meeting at this very moment in Midrand, South Africa, till 2 December 2005. SABC News reports that one of the issues on the table is the creation of an African Court of Justice, destined to handle continent-wide human rights violations. Members of the African Union will first need to ratify protocols that define and address human rights issues. To date, only eight have done so. The PAP was

established in March 2004, by Article 17 of The Constitutive Act of the African Union, as one of the nine Organs provided for in the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community signed in Abuja, Nigeria, in 1991. The establishment of the Pan-African Parliament is informed by a vision to provide a common platform for African peoples and their grass-roots organizations to be more involved in discussions and decision-making on the problems and challenges facing the continent. [Source]

Just at the time it was announced that the PAP would sit in South Africa, Fodder observed that "we're really starting to believe that the AU is actually going to work, it's slow going and often we seem to be taking as many steps backwards as we are forwards, but the bigger picture is looking rosy for the future of the AU." I want to believe that with all my might. Apart from a positive observation of the situation in Darfur, and a subsequent call to protect civilians as well, the PAP, and the AU, have been mainly lazying about.

For a good while now I've been intimately worried about the incessant creation of abbreviations on the continent. They cost money, and assure the comfort of only a few. Men and women, it may be true, who are dedicated to Africa and to Africans, but who remain caught in the system. It should be clear, one would think, that it is not abbreviations we need but the money that is being used to create them left, right and center. The quote above mentions nine organs, plus the PAP, plus the AU, plus the AEC, plus grass-roots organisations, and that is not nearly close to the actual number of past, present and future abbreviations on the continent.

A speech by Dr Gertrude I Mongella, President of the Pan African Parliament, states that PAP was created "to ensure the full participation of African peoples in the development and economic integration of the continent of Africa. [...] It is us who carry the aspirations of the peoples of Africa. [Source]" I want to believe that with all my might, too.

Mostly Africa has this article: African Union-- who pays?

DA takes important steps to build African democracy

Tony Leon, the leader of the Democratic Alliance, South Africa's official opposition party, and DA National Chairperson Joe Seremane have been in Mozambique for the past two days, to build ties with Renamo, the official opposition party of that country. The two opposition parties have agreed to sign a record of understanding in the new year. Sapa reports that in an attempt to to develop co-operation between opposition parties in the Southern African region, the DA also earlier today, met with a smaller Mozamibican political party, Mozambique's Party for Peace Democracy and Development (PPDD).

So far, the DA has already met with political parties from Namibia and Botswana and intends meeting opposition parties in Zambia and Tanzania in 2006.

"Addressing the Netherlands Institute of Multiparty Democracy in
Maputo on Monday, Leon advised Mozambique to avoid ruling party
dominance which loomed in neighbouring states. He said a ruling party could use its power and patronage to cut down and co-opt the opposition until it was no longer an effective political force. "That is why I believe it is necessary for us to build and improve co-operation among opposition parties-not just within our individual countries, where co-ordinated opposition is more effective opposition, but also across borders, by bringing together opposition parties from throughout the region and Africa as a whole," Leon said".

I think that Leon is taking an important and possibly even a historical step towards building democracy on the continent by trying to build bridges and improve co-operation between opposition parties. What better way to put pressure on strong man governments then by building up powerful opposition movements. This may only be a beginning, but I feel that it is a truly positive development. By working together, opposition parties can learn from one another and gain strength in unity, and by supporting one another. Politically, it's also a good move for Leon who stands to gain credibility from the black population back home by building ties with other African leaders. 

Oil Delta

Amnesty International has released a report about the ongoing violence in the Nigerian Oil Delta. As long as the oil keeps pumping, to hell with human rights and the environment. Don't you just love those Shell ads on TV showing how much Shell cares for the environment. It's enough to make you want to reach for the barf bag. According to Amnesty International:

"Nigerian security forces often gun down unarmed civilians while protecting foreign oil majors in the Niger Delta, rights group Amnesty International said in a just released report, calling on US and British firms to investigate two recent violent incidents.....Amnesty's report focuses on two recent incidents in which deadly force was used by troops after local communities had challenged the rights of two oil majors, Shell and the US giant Chevron, to operate in their area. On February 4, soldiers shot one protester dead and injured 30 more when villagers from the Ugborodo community invaded Chevron's Escravos oil terminal, the report alleges. Two weeks later, on February 19, at least 17 people were killed when soldiers from the same Joint Task Force, which has been deployed to protect the oil industry, raided Odioma, burning much of the town to the ground in a fruitless search for an armed vigilante group."

Africa - digital dumping ground

The Basel Action Network (BAN), a Seattle based environmental organisation has just released a report titled "The Digital Dump: Exporting Reuse and Abuse to Africa." BAN focuses "on confronting the excesses of unbridled free trade in the form of “Toxic Trade” (trade in toxic wastes, toxic products and toxic technologies) and its devastating impact on global environmental justice."

According to the report American and European  recycling firms donate useless equipment to developing nations as a way of getting around the expense of having to recycle it properly.

" A new investigation by the toxic trade watchdog organization, Basel Action Network (BAN), has revealed that large quantities of obsolete computers, televisions, mobile phones, and other used electronic equipment exported from USA and Europe to Lagos, Nigeria for “re-use and repair” are ending up gathering dust in warehouses or being dumped and burned near residences in empty lots, roadsides and in swamps creating serious health and environmental contamination from the toxic leachate and smoke.

The photo-documentary report entitled “The Digital Dump: Exporting High-Tech Re-use and Abuse to Africa,” exposes the ugly underbelly of what is thought to be an escalating global trade in toxic, obsolete, discarded computers and other e-scrap collected in North America and Europe and sent to developing countries by waste brokers and so-called recyclers.

In Lagos, while there is a legitimate robust market and ability to repair and refurbish old electronic equipment including computers, monitors, TVs and cell phones, the local experts complain that of the estimated 500 40-foot containers shipped to Lagos each month, as much as 75% of the imports are “junk” and are not economically repairable or marketable. Consequently, this e-waste, which is legally a hazardous waste is being discarded and routinely burned in what the environmentalists call yet “another “cyber-age nightmare now landing on the shores of developing countries.”

“Re-use is a good thing, bridging the digital divide is a good thing, but exporting loads of technotrash in the name of these lofty ideals and seriously damaging the environment and health of poor communities in developing countries is criminal,” said Jim Puckett, coordinator of BAN who led the field investigation."

Is Africa prepared for bird flu?

Bird flu - it's in all the newspapers, it's getting extreme media coverage, and we've had all the comparisons to the 1918/19 Spanish global flu outbreak when 50 million people died. The first case of bird flu has now been picked up in Greece, in a domestic turkey. The virus has also been detected in swans in Romania. Here is a summary of today's world headlines (sensationalist as always):

• 50 MILLION MASKS BEING DELIVERED TO FRENCH HOSPITALS TO PROTECT AGAINST BIRD FLU
• BRITONS BID FOR BIRD FLU MASKS ON EBAY
• REPORT: UP TO 1.6 MILLION CANADIANS COULD DIE FROM BIRD FLU
• BIRD FLU FEAR GRIPS ITALY DESPITE REASSURANCES
• EU NATIONS DECLARE BIRD FLU GLOBAL THREAT
• WORLD PREPARES FOR FEARED BIRD FLU EPIDEMIC

So would South Africa, and Africa be prepared in the case of an epidemic? Our health department says it's working closely with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to deal with a possible outbreak. Government says there is no immediate danger to South Africa, and officials have intensified detection control measures to prevent possible human exposure. Also, a scientist has been given the happy task of collecting bird poo from the Durban Harbour in order to test for the virus. Around 500 migratory birds, mainly sandpiper and plover, fly to Durban from northern Asia every year for the summer.

You might be interested to know however, that Tamiflu, the drug said to be most effective in the treatment of bird flu, has not yet been registered in South Africa by the Medicines Control Council (MCC). The MCC says not to worry, as they have made an urgent request to the health department to allow for the quick registration of the drug for use here. The only problem, as the Democratic Alliance have so aptly pointed out, is that government's actions may have come too late since the supply of Tamiflu has been severely delayed due to huge demands from all over the world.

What about the rest of Africa? The WHO has asked African countries to start monitoring for the virus - but I guess alot will depend on how much assistance they receive from the WHO and the international community, as most countries do not have the resourses to manage on their own. Sapa reports that so far the Republic of Congo, Kenya and Sudan have taken steps to prevent the spread of bird flu. The Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) has set up a surveillance network on the disease, and all three countries have introduced preventive measures, which means prohibiting imports of domestic and wild birds, as well as poultry products from countries where the virus has been detected. Millions of birds migrate to Africa each year from Europe, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has issued "dire" warnings that the virus may reach the continent by December.

"Without international assistance, poverty-stricken African nations, whose populations are already at risk from hunger and suppressed immune systems, could be overwhelmed if the virus appears and jumps to humans, experts said. "If Europe, which has many means to stop the bird flu, wasn't able to prevent it, what will happen to us in Africa?" worried an official with the African Union's Nairobi-based Bureau of Inter-African Animal Resources".

In my opinion, if there is a global bird flu outbreak, I don't think it will be anything near as bad as the Spanish flu epidemic - we have better medicines, and better prevention,detection and control systems. However, in saying that, if there is a global outbreak of any serious proportion, it will be the first world that gets off lightly, while the developing countries, and Africa in particular bear the brunt of the disease. What's new?

Resources:
Bird flu: everything you need to know
Q&A: Bird flu

Housing-the struggle to deliver

Mavis Dlamini is 72 years old. She lives in a tin shack in the overcrowded Diepsloot informal settlement on the northwestern outskirts of Johannesburg. On her meager government pension of R700 a month she supports an aging cousin, her unemployed daughter, Nonhlanhla, and two young grandchildren. She also supports the three children of her eldest daughter who died of AIDS two years ago. Mavis gets an additional R180 a month in child support grants for three of the children, but two of them don’t have birth certificates and she has been battling to obtain these from the Department of Home Affairs. Mavis has been on the list for government housing for the past five years, and she is tired of waiting.

For a moment I am temporarily blinded, as I walk from the bright sunlight into the gloomy darkness of her shack. The windowless structure is tiny, and I am amazed that it manages to house eight people. Despite the hardships of grinding poverty, the shack is immaculately clean and tidy. Mavis boils water for tea on a small primus stove in the corner. A makeshift table, constructed from plastic crates and pieces of wooden planking is covered in a shiny oilcloth. Thin sponge mattresses rolled into coils are neatly stacked against a corrugated iron wall wallpapered with old newspapers and pages torn from magazines. A narrow bed, propped up on old paint tins seems to be Mavis’s only luxury, and unframed family photos are proudly displayed on the wall above her bed.

While Mavis, and her daughter and cousin drink from a motley selection of chipped mugs, I sip my sweet, milky tea from a white teacup taken from a cardboard box under the bed in my honour. I have also been told, in no uncertain terms to sit on the only chair, while the rest of the family perch on plastic crates.  Music blaring from a nearby shack competes with the loud voice of a radio news reader in another. Somewhere nearby someone is working on a car, and I can hear the sharp tatatatata of the engine being turned over, again and again. Somewhere else a dog is barking incessantly, and in the shack next door two people are conducting a shouting match. I find the noise of human beings living cheek by jowl overwhelming, but Mavis and her family seem oblivious.

I ask Mavis about the services available to her in this section of the settlement. “No electricity, we are having to use candles, and paraffin for cooking. In winter is too cold, we must always wash with cold water, and now is raining time of year, the rain is coming inside, the children is sick and there is no money, no money for the medicine.” As if to prove her point, a small boy appears in the doorway and gazes hesitantly at me. His breathing is laboured, and thick blobs of mucous crust his nostrils.

Diepsloot informal settlement is home to 80-thousand people, but it is estimated that there is a housing backlog of around 12.5 million people in South Africa. Researchers point out that this figure is probably a conservative estimate, and that the government does not really know how many people require housing. More than half of this number have no access to basic services like electricity, running water, sanitation and refuse removal.

Government has made remarkable strides in attempting to address the backlog having delivered around 1.8 million houses since the advent of democracy in 1994. However, as Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu explains, rapid urbanisation is causing the demand for housing to grow faster than government can deliver it. Briefing the media earlier this year, Sisulu admitted that despite the massive public spending on housing of R29.5-billion over the past ten years, the number of informal settlements has grown substantially. She acknowledged that budgetary constraints coupled with growing backlogs and rapid urbanisation could mean that in ten years time the country would be in exactly the same place with the same backlog of housing for the poor.

The housing situation is exacerbated by other problems. Due to South Africa’s porous borders, the populations of informal settlements are being swelled with immigrants mainly from neighbouring Zimbabwe and Mozambique, as well as Malawi. Maladministration and corruption in the running of housing projects is rife, causing development in parts of the country to stagnate. Developers take short cuts resulting in sub-standard houses that fall apart, and people complain of having to bribe officials in order to move up on the waiting lists. However, although Lindiwe Sisulu seems genuinely committed to sorting out her portfolio, the department as a whole is struggling to stamp out the corruption that has become another major obstacle to delivery.

In the meantime, South Africans are running out of patience. Towards the end of 2004 violent protests against the lack housing and basic service delivery broke out in the Free State province and soon spread to the rest of the country. These protests have continued to take place in different regions on an almost monthly basis ever since. While the official line has been to blame the violence on political instigators, and a lack of communication between government and communities, there is a very real sense of frustration on the ground.  Government seems to have taken note of this, and in recent months have announced a number of new programmes in an attempt to fast track the provision of housing and other services. Also, high level delegations including ministers of relevant departments have paid a series of visits to municipalities around South Africa in order to talk to communities and hear their complaints.

Back in Diepsloot, the sun is going down, and the air is so thick with smoke from the many cooking fires that I battle to breathe.  I ask Mavis if she thinks that the government is making a new effort to finally deliver on their promises. She shakes her head and smiles wryly, “ Yoh yoh yoh,  Mbeki he thinks we stupid, local elections is coming soon, now we see the government is telling us good things. I will believe when I am sleeping in my house”.

AIDS causing dramatic increase in school drop outs

Is South Africa's education system in crisis? Judging by some of the media reports ranging from learners still being taught under trees (especially in KwaZulu Natal), falling standards of education and teaching, and violence in schools, it seems difficult not to conclude, at the very least, that there is a very real and urgent problem.

The latest cause for concern, comes in the form of a Human Rights Watch report released today. According to the report millions of children in southern and eastern Africa are dropping out of school as a direct result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. I'm not sure what the exact figures are for South Africa, but according to Willie Madisha, president of the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) it numbers in the tens of thousands. Madisha said that 52% of all pupils reached Grade 12 while less than 88% reached Grade 5. Although I'm not sure that those numbers are all due to HIV/AIDS, I would imagine that the majority of drop outs are AIDS related.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda, there are more than 12 million children orphaned by AIDS, and that excludes the millions of school age going children whose parents are terminally ill. The report goes on to say that when it comes to government AIDS programmes and the official response to AIDS, this consequence of response to the disease is being almost entirely overlooked and neglected.

Other experts on this issue have made the obvious observation that the effect of Aids in the classroom will have long term consequences by dampening economic growth across the continent. One of the solutions that springs to mind would be for government to provide special grants to orphaned children who can't afford uniforms and school fees, but researchers point out the downside:

"We remain unconvinced that special grants are the best policy response to the risks orphans face, at least with respect to their schooling. Our results suggest that cash given to orphans' care-givers is unlikely to close the gap in school achievement. We fear that any money given to caregivers would be disproportionately channelled towards other non-orphan children in the same household and that the orphans would not receive the full benefit".

People who support the capitalist system generally seem to think that it's okay to pay for education, books, uniforms etc. I think that particulary when we look at "African solutions", and especially, in better off countries like South Africa and Kenya, governments should at least ensure that primary and secondary education, as well as the accompanying necessities like books, uniforms and school feeding schemes, are free.

This week, the South African Human Rights Commission will be holding hearings on the right to basic education - and after all, isn't that what basic education should be - a human rights issue, something that we are all entitled to, not just just a privilegefor those who can afford to pay for it.