WHISTLE BLOWERS SET BANANA PEEL FOR
WORLD BANK
MAFIA ON WATER
WATER WILL SOON BECOME A MAJOR TALKING POINT IN NIGERIA
BY ABDULMUMINI ADE
KU.
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.
