WHISTLE BLOWERS SET BANANA PEEL FOR WORLD BANK MAFIA ON WATER

WHISTLE BLOWERS SET BANANA PEEL FOR WORLD BANK

MAFIA ON WATER

WATER WILL SOON BECOME A MAJOR TALKING POINT IN NIGERIA

BY ABDULMUMINI ADEKU.

Lagos state government will have to prepare for a hell of a trouble soon as whistle blowers on the aegis of the Environmental Rights Action and Friends of the Earth said they will not rest until the state rescinds its decision to go into an unholy alliance with the International Finance Corporation, an arm of the World Bank Group over its plans to privatize water in the state.

In his address to a cross section of the Nigerian and global media, the  A director of Corporate Accountability at ERA,Mr Akinbode  Oluwafemi said that it was very sad that at a time when water is been considered as a natural resource which should not be toyed with for the benefit of humanity some selfish interest motivating corporate concern wish to sue water to make life unbearable for mankind.

He went down memory lane to 1979 when Lagos state started to romance western donors on the need to improve the water infrastructures within the state and wondered what the leadership had done with all the years of support they have been given by the donors.

According to him because things have not been better a lot of residents have now resorted to drilling boreholes so as to meet with there water needs  while about 95 percent of the populace resort to drinking unsafe water from streams, rivers, wells among other bad sources.

He lamented that the leadership of the state government under Barrister Babatunde Fashola instead of carrying the people along have now gone into a secret partnership with the World Bank group with most of the details very sketchy as at press time.

He listed cities around the world like Manila in the Philippines ,Accra in Ghana as places where this kind of experiments have been toyed with in the past but failed woefully .

Oluwafemi speaks:”around the world, the IFC advices regimes, conducts corporate bidding processes, designs complex and lopsided water privatization contracts, dictates arbitration terms and is part owner of water corporations that win the contracts it designs and recommends, all while aggressively marketing the model to eb replicated around the world”

“Not only do these activities undermine democratic water governance but they constitute an inherent conflict of interest within the IFC activities in the water sector ,an alarming pattern seen from eastern Europe to India to South East Asia”

He recalled that civil society groups across the United States last week started calling and sending out messages to the World Bank for demanding full disclosures  over the matter but up till now ,the Bretton Woods firm has been numb.

He warned that if the current efforts by the World Bank is allowed to sail through ,it will just be a replica of what was happening in the power sector.

He told the Lagos state government that the efforts to privatize water as a utility product to the people was an elephant project which will only bring an ill wind hence should be stopped.

In her own submissions, Dr Joe Okei-Odumakin, President ,Woman Arise Initiative  said that it was time the state leadership listen to the yearnings of the people and not take decisions that will expose the masses to unnecessary hardship.

She assured that he was sure that the present leadership in Lagos has a listening ear and that the decision may not stand when they know the eventual and long terms implication of there decision.

In his own contributions, Mr Francis Abayomi, Director, Peace and Development project, Lagos said it was vital that whistle blowers and all other people with conscience come together so as to forge a common front on the matter as it concerns privatization as  failure will make the incoming generation of Nigerians ask more questions.