MEDIA ADVISORY
CEE Bankwatch Network
Friends of the Earth International
Argentina re-nationalizes EIB funded
project
Mexico, 22nd March -- An unprecedented
decision came yesterday, a day before the
World Water Day, from the Argentinean
government which decided to re-nationalize
water utilities in Buenos Aires and take it
out from the hands of the European companies
Suez and Aguas Barcelona, partners in the
consortium Aguas Argentinas.
The consortium, which received 70 million
euros financial support from the European
Investment Bank (EIB) in 1995, was not
delivering on the expected agreed investments
and on measures to deal with the high level
of nitrate in the water that affected the
health of local people. Failing on water
quality the consortium still demanded
increase of tariffs and Suez even sued
Argentinean government for 1.4 billion USD
lawsuit for not allowing of the raise. As a
result finally the government decided to get
out of the contract and put the utilities in
public hands by creating state company Aguas
y Saneamiento Argentino.
Magda Stoczkiewicz from the CEE Bankwatch
Network, monitoring the EIB, comments: "This
is not the only project with the EIB support
for private sector to run water utilities in
the South. We have documented similar cases
in the Philippines and Indonesia for ex. The
pattern seems to be the same, big water
company backed up by public money from the
EIB takes over public utilities, fails to
deliver on quality of the service but still
raises tariffs at the expense of the local
people."
In Argentina the EIB is also involved in
two more cases of water privatization during
the last ten years. In the Cordoba city and
Province of Misiones with two loans
respectively in 1998 and 2000 with
overall more than 56 million Euro.
Jaroslava Colajacomo, the author of the
recently published report "European
Investment Bank in the South. In whose
interest?" comments:
"Backed by EIB loans Suez has been already
involved in another cases of suing the
governments: in Argentina for the Cordoba
water management and in the Philippines in
2003. The case of Philippines resulted in
raising of tariffs by 500%.
"The Ministerial declaration issued today
at the Fourth World Water Forum does not
recognize once again the failure of water
public-private partnership (PPP) models that
the EIB has been financing in the South and
the detrimental impacts on the government.s
sovereignty to decide on national water
policy"
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Jaroslava Colajacomo:
jaro@playapart.it
, Ph in Mexico: +52 55 33 14 38 97 (Spanish,
English, Italian)
Magda Stoczkiewicz, CEE Bankwatch Network:
magdas@bankwatch.org
Ph. in Mexico: +52 55 29 95 15 91 (English,
Polish)
Longgena Ginting Friends of the Earth
International
ginting@foei.org
Phone in Mexico +52 55 29 95 15 33
(English)
THE REPORT ON THE EIB IS ONLINE AT:
www.foei.org/publications/
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