Scrap water project with World Bank: CPI (India)

[struggle4progress]

New Delhi, Aug 20 The Communist Party of India (CPI) today demanded withdrawal of World Bank-aided water supply reforms in the national capital saying multinational water companies have already destroyed the water sector in 20 other developing countries.

''The whole process held in a non-transparent and non-consultative manner should be scrapped,'' CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan said, even as Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit denied privatisation of water supply in the city. <snip>

The CPI leader reminded the government of how these companies had ''ruined''the water sector in countries like Brazil, Puerto Rico, Philippines, Bolivia and Estonia and how ''they were thrown out from there.'' ''Records indicate that the World Bank blatantly and arbitrarily intervened in the award of a consultancy contract, to draw the blue print of water sector reforms, of Rs 7 crore to favour Price Waterhouse Coopers in November 2001,'' he said.

Where similar measures were undertaken under World Bank pressure, water companies made "huge and unjustifiable" profits at the expense of local citizens, he added. ''Water tariff skyrocketed and water quality deteriorated. Water was diverted from residential areas to amusement parks and five star hotels and supply to the poor was cut off as they could not afford to pay,'' Mr Bardhan said. <snip>

http://news.webindia123.com/news/states.asp?state=ES14%2CDelhi&count=5&action=fullstory&n_date=ES14%2CDelhi8%2F21%2F20055

[1932]

1. How this works, according to J. Perkins (Confessions of an Ec. Hit Man):

Economists on the take claim that a large project will have a ROI that is unbelievably large. This frees up World Bank and USAID loans. The loans go to large US companies and to a few wealthy families in the developing country. The larger the loan the better.

The projects never work out. (In the book, a good guy working on an Indonesian electricity plant tells Perkins that even in the best years in the US after FDR really made the US economy grow by making the working man rich, US electricity demand never increased more than 6-7% in the best years, so the astronomical ROIs the economists on the take claimed were impossible.)

When the country fails to pay back the development loans, the US calls in the collateral:

(1) Land (which is turned over to US multinational corps);

(2) UN votes (the country is forced to vote with the US); and

(3) Military bases.

[struggle4progress]

2. Delhiites now protest Wolfowitz's 'economic war'

New Delhi: Controversial World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz today met protestors on his first visit to India where many believe as former US deputy secretary of defence he wrote the blueprint for President George W Bush's Iraq war.

This time though it was the ''economic war'' of the World Bank in the form of privatisation of the Delhi Jal Board that put Mr Wolfowitz at the centre of attention.

Hundreds of people, including social activists, students, residents welfare associations and employees and engineers of the Jal Board staged a demonstration in front of the World Bank office here to coincide with the two-day visit of the World Bank chief. The protestors demanded that the Bank back out of the move to privatise water supply in the national capital. <snip>

http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=15478

[mbperrin]

6. Did Wolfie lick his comb?

Jes wonderin'

[mod mom]

3. Must have read the PNAC plan. nt

[bandy]

4. Great news!

Always glad to hear others are fighting this attempt to take control of the WHOLE WORLD by the PNACers.

[lovuian]

5. This is where socialism has to come in!!! Water an essential

to people must be government or a public utility!!!

[wli]

7. how long before India joins the SCO as a full member?

Bushler unites the world against us again.