Government owned water supply is privatised and this is what happens. Corporate directors (aka "superstars of business") demanding drought orders whilst profits go through the roof and they leak 894 million litres a day.
Thames Water has missed its leakage reduction target for a third successive year, but has announced a 31% rise in pre-tax profits to £346.5m. Though the amount of water lost has reduced, it still lost 894 million litres per day to leaks.
The target set for it by the water regulator Ofwat was 860 million litres.
The firm has asked for a drought order which would affect London and small parts of Kent and Surrey. These areas are already subject to a hosepipe ban.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5101434.stm
And a little background:
Privatisation was supposed to bring competition, but if a water company decides to rip you off for the water you use and can’t be bothered to repair cracked pipes, alternatives are in short supply. Worse still, the water corporations’ focus on profits at all cost makes them unable and unwilling to do anything to meet the current water shortages, as money that could have gone into maintenance leaks away into shareholders’ pockets.
Here in the UK the government spent most of the last 150 years (and loads of taxpayer cash) buying up the water companies, convinced that private corporations are not the best organisations to deliver such an essential service. All that changed in 1989 when the Thatcher government flogged off the lot under the 1988 Water Act. And in case no one was interested in picking up a monopoly or two, the firesale came with some additional incentives; £5 billion worth of debts owed by the water authorities would be written off and a £1.6 billion subsidy would be given up front. Monopoly, debt write-off and a cash incentive still not enough for you? Well, how about having the companies at a bargain basement 22% discount too?!
Unsurprisingly pre-tax profits of the 10 water companies then rose by almost 150% in the first 9 years of privatisation.
In the week when Thames Water announced that there would be a hosepipe ban in London, the company’s shareholders also enjoyed a 10% profit. No “cash drought” on the horizon then? Although it’s raining cash for investors it’s more like a golden-shower for the less fortunate customers. Not only has OFWAT agreed to further massive price hikes, but Thames Water also manages to lose over a third of the water through the antiquated Victorian pipe system that they just can’t seem to afford to fix (pissing away 1 billion litres a year, enough to fully supply Birmingham). The company had agreed an investment plan with the regulator, but then curiously spent £350 million less on it than planned, the equivalent of 10% off every customer’s bill. So where did that 10% end up? Drained away down the profit plug hole perhaps?
Thames Water, whose 8 million customers will be affected by the ban, says two unusually dry winters have caused “serious” water shortages. Had the water companies invested in infrastructure maybe they wouldn’t be losing a third of our water. In the current climate of “eco-awareness”, the UK fails miserably in terms of utilising our rainwater. Only a desultory 5% finds its way into our water supply. Our suppliers whinge and moan about shortcomings in the weather, but can’t be bothered to dip into their piggy banks to bale us out – maybe saving it all for a rainy day.
Thames Water did, however, last year feel flush enough to throw a £2.2 million pay-packet at their top four directors. All in, the German owned company’s liquid profits came in at a cool £385.5 million. Londoners must have experienced that sinking feeling, as they suffered a 21% increase in their water bills.
The idiocy of water privatisation has become a global pandemic (would that be Evian Flu perhaps?) Africans have long been without a proper water supply, but private companies (who picked up local water companies at bargain basement prices during a spate of privatisation in the 1990s) have still been flooding customers with higher bills. According to a report by the University of Witwatersrand, 22,000 people in Johannesburg are disconnected from water supplies each month because they can’t afford to pay steeply rising water bills. The problem affects the whole country - in a population of 44 million, 10 million South Africans have had their supplies cut. The result? 43,000 deaths from diarrhea last year, and an outbreak of cholera affecting 135,000.
http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news536.htm
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