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Book reviews

dirty water!

the shameful record of the giant water companies

FoE England, Wales and Northern Ireland (EWNI) has just published a report detailing the environmental and social records of some of the main water companies. The report looks at Vivendi, Suez, Enron and Thames Water. It reveals a history of convictions for corruption, pollution, corporate lobbying and connections to oppressive regimes and human rights abuses. Friends of the Earth believes that these companies are not fit to deliver the world's water, and that public water services should be kept out of the hands of the private sector.

The corporate records detailed in the report include:

• One of Vivendi's senior managers was convicted for bribery and received a prison sentence of one year and eight months in July 2001.
  
• One of Suez's executives was convicted of bribery and set to prison for four years in 1995.
  
• Several water companies are currently accused of bribery in a massive water project in South Africa.
  
• There have been a string of prosecutions in the UK for environmental pollution and health and safety issues.
  
• Seven out of the ten worst polluters of 1999 as reported by the Environment Agency were water companies.
  

These companies are not fit to be given control of the world's water. Water privatization by western companies in the developing world has so far benefited only the companies' shareholders, leaving people and the environment high and dry. Handing water services over to the private sector has left local people with a decline in service coupled with prices so high they can no longer afford water.

"Dirty Water: The environmental and social records of four multinational water companies" is available at www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/dirty_water.pdf. Also see "Stealing Our Water" published by FoE EWNI in November 2001 at www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/gats_stealing_water.pdf.

power politics

“The fact is that what's happening today in India is not a problem , and the issues that some of us are raising are not causes . They are huge political and social upheavals that are convulsing the nation. One is not involved by virtue of being a writer or activist. One is involved because one is a human being.”
Arundhati Roy in “Power Politics”

Arundhati Roy's book “Power Politics” exposes India's own unique brand of economic globalization, and this will likely interest many campaigners. But what makes it most striking is Roy's ability explain this complex topic with both feeling and precision. Roy is not only a Booker prize-winning fiction writer, but also an activist who opposes big dams on the Narmada River. Her case against economic globalization stems from the maddeningly illogical, corrupt and inhumane reality of mega-dam construction in India.

Roy cites how protest from opposition political parties put an end to the US-based (and now bankrupt!) energy company Enron's 1993 agreement with the Maharashtra state government for a 695-megawatt power plant. The dam's opponents alleged the deal was awash in corruption. Even Enron admitted it had paid out millions to “educate” politicians and bureaucrats involved. But the story didn't end there.

In 1996 the government of Maharashtra signed a contract to pay Enron US$30 billion. Once they came into power, the same political parties that had successfully opposed the earlier deal went on to pave the way for what has been called the India's most massive fraud. The new deal would mean $12 - $14 billion in profits for Enron. But the power was so expensive the state could not even afford to buy it. Regardless, the state was obligated to pay Enron $220 million annually for the following 20 years. When payments failed to flow, Enron threatened to auction government properties named as collateral in the deal.

The large TNCs that build big dams rely on the Third World market for their lifeblood, writes Roy. Forty percent of the world's large dams are being built in India. As a result there are “Fifty six million displaced, impoverished, pulverized people,” writes Roy.

On central India's Narmada River is the half-built Maheshwar dam, one of 165 dams to be built in this river valley. They are strenuously opposed by the non-violent but indefatigable Narmada Bachao Andolan (Narmada People's Movement), and by Roy.

Originally estimated to cost US$99 million, the latest estimate for the Maheshwar dam has ballooned to $467 million. The Indian textile company S. Kumars, which is to build the project, had never built or operated a large dam before. The electricity the dam produces will be 26 times more expensive than existing hydroelectric power in Madhya Pradesh, a state that already generates surplus power. Yet the company's income will be guaranteed in government funds, whether anyone buys the electricity or not.

“So who is actually paying for this dam nobody needs?” asks Roy. The 50,000 people who will lose their lands and livelihoods, is part of the answer.

Janice Wormworth, FoEI

Power Politics by Arundhati Roy was published by South End Press in 2001.