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Down To The Waterline
Privatisation In South Africa
In 1994 the first 'free elections' were held in South Africa, the
ANC were swept to power, Nelson Mandela became president and apartheid
was dead. Nice one. But as soon as they were in power the ANC were
visited by the big boys of global capital (World Bank, IMF etc)
to be told that they had inherited a $25 billion debt from the apartheid
days (it was money used to prop up that regime). The new ANC government
were also told to adapt to the 'realities of the global economy',
paving the way for the country to start 'modernising' with new infrastructure
(read: new loans needed for new roads and power etc to attract more
transnational companies to come in and extract more resources).
The gist of this is that South Africa is another country in debt
with the IMF, and paying this money off on the IMF's terms - which
includes mass privatisation of its public utilities. These policies
get results alright - the standard of living in South Africa is
lower than during the apartheid days.
Water
In September 2001 when something happening in the US was taking
all the headlines 1800 houses in Tafelsig, South Africa had
their water cut off because they couldn't afford to pay the bills
the recently privatised water company was demanding. People who
resisted the cut offs were shot with live ammunition. Plumbers disconnected
the pipes under the guard of riot cops. After the cut-offs the Unicity
Council installed taps in the middle of some of Tafelsig's streets
as an emergency water supply. More than 40 houses were forced to
share each tap. The mayor of Western Cape Province, Gerald Morkel,
went on radio to say that the people of Tafelsig don't pay for water
because they spend all their money in casinos! The real situation
is that most families of seven or more people in Tafelsig survive
off a pension or disability grant from one family member - little
more than R500 (£32) per month, and after the privatisation of the
water system some families got water bills of more than R800 (£51).
In a country with 45% unemployment these bills simply could not
be paid. The communities formed the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF)
to make their voice heard.
Electricity
Meanwhile the recently privatised electricity company Eskom started
cutting off the electricity of people who couldn't pay their massively
increased bills. Poor communities in South Africa organised a boycott
of their Eskom payments and the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee
(SECC) began illegally reconnecting the power of families who were
left in the dark. For nine months, it organised a boycott of electricity
payments to Eskom, with around eighty per cent of Sowetans taking
part. Then there was the SECC's Operation Khanyisa - a campaign
to illegally reconnect peoples' power. All this has worked and last
October Eskom announced it would no longer disconnect those who
couldn't pay:
"Peoples' Power was responsible for Eskom's U-turn. We mobilized
tens of thousands of Sowetans in active protests over the past year.
We established professional and intellectual credibility for our
critique of Eskom, even collaborating on a major Wits University
study. We demonstrated at the houses of the mayor, Amos Masondo,
and local councillors, and in the spirit of non-violent civil disobedience,
we went so far as to disconnect the electricity supplies of the
mayor and councillors to give them a taste of their own medicine."
(Trevor Ngawane SECC)
The success of the campaign inspired a similar boycott of water
payments, and thousands of Sowetans took to the streets since SECC
and the APF merged to form a joint political front. Trevor Ngwame
said: "We decided to broaden our struggle to include a demand
that all basic services in South Africa should be free - water,
housing, electricity, healthcare, education and transport."
Telecommunications
And the privatisation fun doesn't stop there. The South African
telephone system has also recently been privatised and now 40 percent
of the new phone lines that the company Telkom has delivered have
been disconnected because the people can't afford the new rates.
While the company is rolling out new phones, basic rentals and local
call costs have gone up by 35% pushing telephones beyond the reach
of many South Africans. In contrast, the price of domestic long-distance
and international calls, used more by the richer population who
can afford to pay the new rates, became cheaper by 40 per cent.
To stay competitive and make a profit the phone company is weeding
out the people who can't pay, and making calls cheaper for the people
who can.
Housing
Communities are being shafted as their housing get subjected to
privatisation. On the 8th of November 2001 Cape Town
Unicity tried to evict people from houses they own, for non-payment
of rent?! Residents who own houses in Mitchell's Plain, specifically
Tafelsig, Montrose Park, Lost City and Silver City, were understandably
shocked to receive final demands for rental arrears. They were given
one week to pay or face eviction. These 'arrears' goes back to money
owed from the apartheid days, debts which were supposed to be annulled
by a 1994 law. As well as fighting this, the Western Cape Anti-Eviction
Campaign and National Housing Department are investigating the way
Unicity pockets the R7500 (£485) government cheques meant for each
household.
On the 6th of March 2002 over 1000 People living in
the semi-privatised GEMS scheme houses in Hanover Park, Woodlands,
Portlands, and Mitchell's Plain marched on parliament, to the Provincial
MEC of Housing and then to the Unicity council offices. The families
were angered that they were moved into so-called starter homes on
the basis that they would pay bonds of between R150 - R350 (£10-22)
per month. They found the homes to be substandard and their bonds
rapidly increased up to R1000 (£64) per month. They have been boycotting
further payments since November and are currently involved in legal
action with the GEMS scheme directors over breaches of contract.
"These are supposed to be starter houses for the poorest of
the poor and we hear that GEMS receives R25 million from government
every year to help the poor get homes, but all we are getting is
corruption. These privatised homes are no good," (Ishmael Petersen
- Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign.)
Private Hell
On the 21st of March The Kathorus Concerned Residents
group led a march with the Anti-Privatisation Forum to the Ekurhuleni
mayor and on the same day in Soweto, the SECC and the APF marched
to the UBC council offices in Jabulani.
On the April 9th, after hundreds of residents were issued with
eviction and water cut-off notices people in the communities of
Mandela Park and Lingelethu West in Khayelitsha, CapeTown took their
protests against evictions water cut-offs and privatisation directly
to the council. A new magistrate's court has been built in Mandela
Park. Although it is not yet open, the cleaning services have already
been privatised! The community has marched to the court and protested
outside three times to stop the privatisation and keep the few jobs
in the area within the community. Other residents occupied the municipal
offices to demand an affordable flat rate basic payment for services.
On the 12th of April after months of resisting privatisation
the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign (AEC) received a memo from
mayor Gerald Morkel which claimed that nobody will be evicted or
face water or electricity cut offs if they make arrangements to
pay. What was all the fuss about eh? Maybe the mayor forgot that
the reason so many people are being turfed out of their homes is
because they CAN'T AFFORD TO PAY. This is the same mayor who took
out a full page advert in the newspaper, using public money to announce
that the disconnected water supplies in Tafelsig had been reconnected
- a blatant lie as revealed in the press the next day.
The AEC and the Cape Town APF picketed the parliament on the 16th
April in support of the 50 people from the SECC who were jailed
for disconnecting the mayor Morkel's water, just to let him know
how the community feels.
And again on the 23rd of April anti-eviction activists
disrupted traffic on a main road going into Cape Town demanding
a meeting with mayor Morkel, to try and resolve the issues around
the ongoing evictions and water cut-offs. Police had to form a human
chain to prevent the protesters from entering the highway. They
delayed traffic on the highway and vowed not to leave until their
grievances were addressed by Morkel. They were told that the mayor
was not in his office and that no one from the council would speak
to them.
Rio+10
Since all the recent community mobilisations, Soweto, the township
of two million outside Johannesburg (known for its 'Spirit of '76'
when 1,000 students protesting Afrikaans-language education were
killed in the 1976 uprising against apartheid) has become very politicised.
In August the 'Rio+10' summit will happen in Sandton, Johannesburg,
and the area will be the scene of an international anti-capitalist
convergence. In the media spotlight of this, already the Anti-Privatisation
Forum (APF) and the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC) have
been labelled 'criminals' by the ANC government.
The South African government would be hoping to avoid a repeat
of the international embarrassment of last year's United Nations
World Conference Against Racism in Durban when five million workers
spoiled the party by going on a two day strike - and 20,000 marched
through Durban - against the privatisation of electricity, telecommunications
and transport. Although they expect a tight crack-down on public
dissent, anti-privatisation fighters in South Africa are promising
similar humiliation for Rio+10.
www.johannesburgsummit.org
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