LETTER OF THE DAY - Privatising water a slippery slope
Published:Wednesday | June 12, 2013 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
The other day on the radio I heard a politician (whose name I did not catch) talking about a plan to privatise Jamaica's water supply. He spoke as if this were a coming trend that was being successfully employed in South America and the United States, among other places.
He failed to mention that in South America, Bolivia had sold its water rights to Cargill, which imposed such hardship on the people. Even water catchment was forbidden. Not until the citizens held massive protests in the streets and the army was turned on the people and several were killed did the government come to its senses and throw out Cargill.
In the United States, there is currently a small town in New Hampshire battling for rights to its own water supply now that it has been sold to a corporation.
There is a global agenda being pushed right now that clean water is not a public right but a commodity to be brought under corporate control and sold back to the people. In most places where water has been privatised, water quality and service have dropped as prices have risen. Such high-minded corporations as Nestlé, Cargill and Bechtel are at the forefront of the privatisation movement.
One of Jamaica's most valuable resources, if not our most precious, is our good, clean, and sometimes abundant water.
In a world where water is rapidly becoming a scarcity, this becomes more valuable every day. It's no surprise that corporate opportunists would be attracted to it.
In some countries, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forced small countries with very limited water resources to sell their water to pay off debt.
Consider that once our water is privatised, the corporation would own it, and could sell it wherever it wanted, including outside Jamaica.
There are several excellent documentary movies - A World Without Water, Blue Gold: World Water Wars, and Flow, just to name a few - that clearly explain these issues.
If we think we have suffered at the hands of the IMF and the Jamaica Public Service Company, it is important to remember that while we can live without electricity, we can't live without water.
ELIZABETH SELTZER
Robins Bay, St Mary